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RECOLLECTIONS. 



SAMUEL ROGERS. 



RECOLLECTIONS 



BY 



SAMUEL ROGERS. 



q£^ . ^ lA]iYv>, SVux>vJL-a_3 



BOSTON: 
BARTLETT AND MILES, 

M DCCC LIX. 



7? ^^-^^^ 
.A4 



RIVERSIDE, Cambridge: 

STEREOTYPED A>'D PRINTED BY 
H. 0. HOOGHTON AND COMPANY. 

Gift 
W. L, Shoemakdr 
7 8 '06 



NOTICE BY THE EDITOR. 




^ HE Recollections which form the 
M contents of the present volume 



were left by Mr. Rogers in 
manuscript, but in a state which showed 
they were intended for publication. 

It appears that from his first entering 
into Society he noted down the conversa- 
tion or remarks of those among his intimate 
friends in whose company he took the great- 
est pleasure ; and subsequently, as these 
notes increased, and he felt they might be- 
come generally interesting, he proceeded, 
from time to time, to extract and collect 
those parts which he thought most worthy 
of perusal by others. 

In some cases the selection of the mate- 



VI 

rials, tlioui^h bo^uii liv liiiu, Avas loi't iii- 
roiuploto at his doath. llo had, ho\vo\iM\ 
]HMnti.'il ou[ hv uuMUiM'auda tho namos ot' 
iho lniH\iihials Avhi^so I'onvorsation he in- 
triuK'il sluniKl i'ovm tho i'(illortii>n, and tho 
iM'dor ill Avhioh thov shouKl t^land. 

Thoiv is an ontr\ in liis Ni>to lnH>k, in 
his (UN n handwritini;', in tho I'ol lowing' words: 
*' l'\>\, Hnrko. (u'altan, PorstMi. Tooko, 
TaUovrand, I'.rskino. Wahor Soott, \.o\\\ 
lnvn\ iUo, Pnko ot" ^^'ollinl;■ton."" l>y this 
and nuiJiorous i>thor iiiiHoations, ho has snt- 
tioiontlv shown tho I'onrso ho a\ ishod slundd 
bo tbUowod ; and a sliort prot"aoo. Avritton 
hv him as an introdnotion to tho Kooolloo- 
tions, n\akos oloar his intontion that tlioy 
shouKl not always roniain nnpnlilishod. 

Ot' tho poi-si>ns aboNO naniod. ^Ir. l^nrko 
was tlio onlv ono with wlunn Mr. lu^ovrs 
wa^ not intiniatolv ai'qnaintod, and whoso 
oonvorsation was not takon down by lun\ 
from porsonal oonnnimioation. llo only 



VII 

knew Mr. Burke as a public man, and was 
indebted to friends for the Recollections of 
him included in this work. 

With a view of renderino; these Memo- 
rials as vahiable as circumstances will al- 
low, as well as of carrying out Mr. Rogers's 
apparent design, the Editor has, in addition 
to tlic extracts which he fnxnd already 
made from the Diaries, selected some fur- 
ther passages in connection with the per- 
sons named which appear of sufficient inter- 
est to be preserved, and which had probably 
been omitted owing to the extracts not 
having been completed. In doing this it 
is possible he has introduced some parts 
which ]Mr. Rogers mioht not have thought 
important enough to be put in print. It 
is hoped, however, that the Reader will not 
complain of the introduction of a few sen- 
tences which the Author may have left out, 
through accident or extreme caution ; but 
to which the lapse of time has now given 



vin 

a value. The most extensive of tlie addi- 
tions so made are the anecdotes of Burke 
by Dr. Lawrence, and a few of the mis- 
cellaneous remarks by the Duke of Wel- 
lington, at p. 240, and the following pages. 
Mr. Rogers, at times, no doubt intended 
that the Recollections should be published 
in his lifetime, and perhaps at a period 
when some of the persons described were 
living. Accidental circumstances, or fur- 
ther consideration, however, prevented the 
fulfilment of this intention ; and caused him 
to leave to his Executors the ag-reeable task 
of laying these pages before the Public : a 
pleasure which has been kindly yielded to 
the Editor, by his Brother and Coexecu- 
tor. The Editor therefore feels that, by the 
course he is now taking, he is only dis- 
charging a duty which he owes to the de- 
ceased ; and he believes that the death of 
all the parties whose conversation is re- 
corded, and the distance, in time, of the 



IX 

events described, will justify the introduc- 
tion of more than could have been so well 
admitted at an earlier period. 

Although it may be thought that the 
following Memorials want the point and 
interest that so often enliven contemporary 
memoirs, yet it is hoped they will be 
valued on other grounds. It will be 
obvious to all who knew Mr. Rogers well 
that they are in strict accordance with 
the best parts of his mind and character. 
Nothing has been allowed by him to stand 
that has any approach to personal scandal 
or to matters of merely temporary interest; 
excej)t in a few instances, there is but little 
reference to the politics of the day in which 
they were written ; many passages, open to 
objection on some of these grounds, that 
had found their way into the original 
notes, were omitted from the corrected 
copy ; and the Writer, who had the am- 
plest choice of subjects, has shown by the 



Recollections lie has preserved that the con- 
versation he thought most worthy of being 
put on record was that connected chiefly 
with literary subjects, or with incidents and 
remarks having for other reasons a perma- 
nent value. The Editor trusts they will 
be thouo-ht to afford agreeable and faithful 
pictures of many Individuals with whom 
the Reader will be glad to be more inti- 
mately acquainted, 

Mr, Rogers so often referred in conver- 
sation to these remembrances of the anec- 
dotes and opinions of his early friends, that 
many of them have been repeated by 
others, either verbally or in print, and may 
at first glance appear familiar to the read- 
er. But they have been so frequently, 
and so much, altered in repetition, that it 
seems not improper to give them entire, 
in the very words in which they were 
left, with that truth of expression and in 
that concise and colloquial style in which 



XI 

Mr. Rogers delighted to write his jour- 
nals. 

It may add to the interest and value of 
the Kecollections, if, before their perusal, 
attention is shortly called to some of the 
principal events and dates in the private 
life of the writer of them. 

Samuel Rogers was born in the month 
of August 1763, the third son of a London 
Banker, whose immediate ancestors were 
of a Worcestershire family, and members 
of the Church of England : while throuoh 
his INIother, he was descended from one of 
the Ejected Ministers of the reign of 
Charles the 2d. It is, no doubt, to his 
maternal descent, that he alludes in the 
following lines, introduced into the notes 
on the poem of Italy : — 

" What though his Ancestors, early or late, 
" Were not ennobled by the breath of kings ; 
" Yet in his veins was running at his birth 
" The blood of those most eminent of old 



xn 

" For wisdom, virtue — those who would renounce 
" The things of this world for their conscience' sake." 

^ ^ "tPt -Tf "TT ^ ^ 

From his Mother, who was taken from 
him in his early youth, and of whom he 
always spoke in terms of the greatest ad- 
miration and affection, he imbibed a love 
of the intrinsically good which guided him 
on many an after occasion. And in one 
of his elder Brothers, Avhom he lost soon 
after he attained to manhood, and to whose 
memory he addressed those beautiful lines 
in the first part of the Pleasures of Mem- 
ory beginning, 

" Oh thou I with whom my heart w'as wont to share, 
" From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care," 

he had an example of vu'tue and good 
sense which strengthened his character and 
by which he profited through life. 

His Father and Mother were Dissenters, 
and he was brought up in their persuasion ; 



xm 

and always through life, when occasion re- 
quired an expression on the subject, he 
described himself as a Presbyterian ; though 
he never obtrusively put forward his opin- 
ions on religion, and often expressed him- 
self as desirous of forgetting any little dif- 
ferences of creed, and of uniting with the 
virtuous of all sects and parties in one re- 
ligion of Christian Love. 

It is well known that Mr. Rogers was 
in politics a Whig ; but in choice of friends 
he did not confine himself to any party ; 
and from the time when he first became 
known as a writer, and entered much into 
society, associated most intimately with per- 
sons of all parties. 

Although introduced when very young 
into his Father's business, his love of poet- 
ry was shown early. Long before he was 
twenty he had put upon paper many lines 
which afforded promise of his subsequent 
performances. His first published poem, 



XIV 

tlie " Ode to Superstition," was begun be- 
fore be was of age ; and the " Pleasures 
of Memory " appeared wjiile be was still a 
working partner in the Bank. 

Having lost bis fatber in 1793, wbose 
deatb-bed be bas toucbingly alluded to in 
his " Lines written in a Sick Chamber," 
and, having united with him in business 
bis younger Brother Henry, he soon after- 
wards retired from all active management 
of the affairs of the Banking House, and 
never resumed it. He quitted his paternal 
residence at Newington Green, where he 
was born and had spent the whole of his 
early life, and, after living a short time 
in chambers in the Temple, be removed, 
about 1803, to a house in St. James's 
Place, looking into the Green Park. This 
bouse be bad altered and nearly rebuilt 
according to bis own taste ; and in it be 
resided until his death, on the 18tli of De- 
cember, 1855. 



XV 

He has been heard to describe how, on 
some occasion after the death of his Fa- 
ther, he detected himself making a calcula- 
tion as to the amount he might expect 
to accumulate if he continued to devote 
his whole time to the pursuit of wealth ; 
and he was so shocked by the idea of be- 
ing influenced by such motives, that he 
determined to desist from active business, 
and to attend to it henceforth only occa- 
sionally, or when matters of importance 
made the assistance of his judgment desir- 
able in the aifairs of the Bank, — a resolu- 
tion to which he subsequently adhered. 

This resolution gave him leisui'e to adopt, 
and indulge in, those pm'suits which were 
more congenial to his taste and judgment; 
and to foster that love which, in the con- 
clusion to his poem of Italy, he has de- 
scribed himself as havino; been gifted with 
by Nature : — 



XVI 

" A passionate love for music, sculpture, painting, 

" For poetry, the language of the gods, 

" For all things here or grand or beautiful, 

" A setting sun, a lake among the mountains, 

" The light of an ingenuous countenance, 

" And what transcends them all, a generous action." 

With what success he profited by these 
gifts, and improved the advantages which 
he has thus described, it must be left to 
others to decide. His pubhshed works, and 
the reputation he enjoyed through a long 
life for taste in literature and the fine arts, 
and for genuine and unobtrusive benevo- 
lence, will assist in arriving at a correct 
opinion, which, it is hoped, will not be 
unfavorable. 

The time occupied in the composition of 
each of his several works was considerable, 
as he was always ready to acknowledge. 
He pursued a practice, which he often re- 
commended to others, of laying by his 
poems for a length of time after they were 



XVII 

written, in order to reconsider them again 
and again, before thinking them complete. 
In illustration of this custom, it may be 
mentioned, that in his Commonplace-Book 
is the following entry, giving the dates of 
publication of his various works, his own 
age at the time, and the number of years 
occupied in the composition and revision 
of each. These particulars are here given 
in his own words : — 



Date of 
Publication. 




Time. 


Age 


1785 . 


Ode . . . 


. . 2 years 


22 


1792 . 


P. of M. . 


7 " 


29 


1798 . 


Epistle . 


6 " 


35 


1812 . 


Columbus 


. . 14 " 


49 


1813 . 


Jacqueline 


. . . 1 " 


50 


1819 . 


Human Life 


6 " 


56 


1834 . 


Italy . . 


. . 15 " 


71 



From the year 1834, when, as he has 
thus described, he completed his last im- 
portant work, until his death, he had 
2 



XVIII 

frequent occupation, while his healtli al- 
lowed, in preparing for the press the re- 
peated issues that were called for, almost 
annually, of his previously published vol- 
umes. After 1834 he wrote no poem of 
length, though he often introduced new 
lines and stanzas, or trifling alterations in 
the successive editions of liis works. These 
changes or additions consisted in part of 
poetry ; but the greater portion of his at- 
tention in the latter years of his life, as 
far as related to his own productions, was 
given to the notes to his " Italy," which he 
made a medium of recordino; his thouo;hts 
and sentiments on various subjects in con- 
nection with the poem. In these notes he 
took great interest ; and the style of them, 
and the nature of the information conveyed, 
may be considered as approved by his ma- 
ture judgment. 

As a proof of the opinion entertained to 



XIX 

a late period of his life of the continuance 
of his powers of mind, and of his taste and 
judgment in poetry, it may be mentioned 
that on the death of Mr. Wordsworth, in 
the year 1850, the post of Laureate was 
offered to him by Her Majesty. This offer, 
made in a letter from Prince Albert, was 
in such gratifying terms as to require great 
strength of mind, and self-denial, on the 
part of Mr. Rogers to refuse it. He felt, 
however, that his time of life was so ad- 
vanced, for he was then eighty-seven, as 
made it imperative on him to decline the 
honor intended him ; and on this ground 
alone, and after a considerable struggle, 
he communicated his refusal to His Royal 
Highness. The appointment was after- 
wards conferred by Her Majesty on Mr. 
Tennyson. 

The following pages are not the produc- 
tion of that part of Mr. Rogers's life to 



XX 

wliicli allusion has just been made ; but, 
although written at earlier periods, they 
have the sanction of his later years ; as, 
until a short time before his death, it was 
his habit to refer to them frequently, and 
occasionally to select or arrange parts of 
them with a view to future publication. 
They will be interesting as showing who 
Avere among his most valued friends, and 
what conversation he thouo;ht most worthv 
of being remembered, during that time of 
his life when his faculties were the strono-- 
est, and Avhen, from his mixing most in 
society, he had the widest field to gather 
from. And, although they are but few 
and short, yet the existence of them in 
manuscript has been so often made known 
to his intimate friends, and they are so 
characteristic of the mind and thoughts of 
the Writer, that it is believed that the 
publication of them may be felt as not en- 



XXI 

tirely unlocked for ; and it is hoped they 
may be favorably received as a slight con- 
tribution to the biography of a generation 
that has now passed away. 

The extreme conciseness of some parts 
of the Recollections often seems to render 
explanation necessary; and the Editor has 
therefore ventured to add occasional Notes, 
containing dates or other references, which, 
it is hoped, may assist in making clear 
some otherwise obscure passages. These 
Notes are, however, very imperfect, and 
additions might be made to them with ad- 
vantage, as there are still several passages 
which the Editor has not been able to 
clear up, but which it is believed that 
further search, or a more intimate ac- 
quaintance with parties named, might assist 
in explaining. For the information con- 
veyed in several of these Notes he is in- 



XXII 

debted to the suggestions of Friends ; an 
obligation he beo-s to acknowledo-e with 
gratitude. 

The few Notes by Mr. Rogers are dis- 
tinguished by his initials, S. R., which he 
had in many places subscribed to them 
himself. 

William Sharpe. 

Highbury Terrace, 
May, 1859. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Preface by Samuel Rogers 27 

Recollections. 

Charles James Fox 31 

Edmund Burke 105 

Henry Grattan 117 

Richard Porson 139 

John Home Tooke 151 

Prince Talleyrand 177 

Lord Erskine 187 

Sir Walter Scott 195 

Lord Grenville 201 

Duke of Wellington 219 



RECOLLECTIONS. 



A5> 



PREFACE 

(BY SAMUEL EOGERS). 

^l^^^gORD Clarendon was often heard 
l^/P'; to say that, next to the blessing of 
is^i^- 4 Almighty God, he owed all the 



little he knew and the little good that was in 
him to the friendships and conversation of the 
most excellent men ; and he always charged 
his children to follow his example ; protesting 
that in the whole course of his life he never 
knew one man, of what condition soever, arrive 
at any degree of reputation in the world, who 
delighted in the company of those who were 
not superior to himself. — Clarendon's Me- 
moirs of Ins oion Life.^ 

1 Abridged from a passage in the Life of Lord Clarendon, 
written by himself, 3d edit. vol. i. p. 29. 



28 PREFACE. 

That such has been my practice thi-ough life, 
if not with the same success, these pages can 
testify. By many they will be thought of little 
value ; but some may think otherwise. The 
principal speakers here were men most eminent 
in their day ; the transactions in which they bore 
a part have now become history ; and some, who 
were then unborn, may not be unwilling to pass 
an hour or two in their company, to hear them 
talk as they did when they were most at their 
ease, — in a morning walk or in an evening by 
the fireside, — and to share in what so few, even 
of their contemporaries, had the privilege of en- 
joying- 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

I am well aware that these scraps of conversa- 
tion have little to recommend them, but as servinp- 
to show his playfulness, his love of letters, and his 
good-nature in unbending himself to a young man. 
They were read by his Nephew with tears in his 
eyes. — S. R. 




CHARLES JAMES FOX. 



Seen him I have, but in his happier hour. 

P OPE, Epiktf/ue to Satires. 



INED at William Sraith's,i March 
19th, 1796, with him [Fox], Dr. 
Parr,^ Tierney,^ Courtney,* Sir 
iCjf^&) Francis Baring,^ Dr. Aikin,^ Mack- 
intosh,'' and Francis.^ Sheridan ® sent an excuse. 



1 M. P. for Norwich, and for many years champion of the 
rights of the Dissenters in the House of Commons. 

2 Rev. Samuel Parr, LL. D. 

3 George Tierney, afterwards a Privy Councillor and Treas- 
urer of the Navy, and since Master of the Mint. 

4 Probablj' John Courtenay, Secretary to Lord Townshend 
while Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; a Commissioner of the 
Treasury in 1806. 

5 Father of Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashbur- 
ton. 

6, John Aikin, a phj'sician; of liberal politics; author of 
very numerous works in science and general literature ; 
principal author of Aikin's General Biography. Mrs. Bar- 
bauld was his sister. 

"i Afterwards Sir James Mackintosh. 

8 Sir Philip Fi-ancls. 9 Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 



32 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Delighted with his fine tact, his feeling, open, 
and gentlemanlike manner ; so full of candor and 
diffidence, and entering with great ardor and inter- 
est into the conversation. 

Francis was an idolater of Don Quixote ; Fox 
said he had not formerly admired it so much. 
Read Spanish, and had acquired it with great 
ease, by means of the Italian partly. Had read 
the other works of Cervantes, and Quevedo, who 
was very difficult. 

Admired Gray's fragment on Government,^ but 
not so highly as Courtney, who thought it the 
jirst 100 lines in the language, and quoted, " Oft 
o'er the trembling nations." Thought he could 
find better in the Religio Laici ^ — and the Trav- 
eller, from which he quoted — " And, wondering 
man could want a larger pile," ^ &c. — preferred 
that poem to the Deserted Village. 

Was disappointed by Schiller's Robbers. When 



1 Fragment of an Essay on the Alliance of Education and 
Government; sent by Gray to Dr. Wharton in a letter dated 
19th Aug. 1748. See Gray's Memoirs, by Mason. 

2 Dryden. 

3 " And, wondering man could want the larger pile, 

Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile." 

Goldsmiih'' s Traveller. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 33 

I hinted its having been suggested by Massinger's 
Guardian, he remembered it instantly, and said 
he should read it again. 

Thought Massinger underrated and neglected, — 
had always admired him greatly, and preferred 
him much to Beaumont and Fletcher. 

Quoted largely from the Hind and Panther,^ 
and particularly with great emphasis Dryden's 
" Happy the man, and happy he alone," ^ which 
he preferred to the original of Horace. Was 
fonder of Dryden than Pope. 

Thought Pope's Eloisa to Abelard " about half 
and half; " and particularly disliked " Give all 
thou canst," &c. ; and " Oh ! make me mistress to 
the man I love," only a common vulgar sentiment, 
and not, as it is in her letters, " the wife of Abe- 
lard." Eloisa much greater in her letters than 
Pope had made her. 

Liked the Rape of the Lock and Prologue to 

1 Dryden. v 

^A verse in the paraphrase, by Dryden, of the 29th Ode 
of the 3d Book of Horace, beginning 

" TyiThena regum progenies." 

In the editions of Dryden's Worlis which I have seen, it is 
said (erroneously) to be a paraphrase of the 29th Ode of the 
1st Book. 

3 



34 CPARLES JAMES FOX. 

Cato ; but above all the Messiah. Thought the 
Sylphs the prettiest things in the world. 

Admired the flow of Dryden's vei'se, which 
does not end with the Rhyme. 

After recording the good as well as the bad 
qualities of Addison, the last couplet is very 
faulty — why laugh if there be such a man, why 
weep if it be Atticus ? — The name cannot add 
anything to our regi'et.^ 

1 This criticism will be better understood after reading 
the lines in question, on the character of Addison, in Pope's 
Epistle to Dr. Arbutlmot, lines 193, &c. ; in which Addison 
is described under the name of Atticus: — 

" Peace to all such ! but were there One whose fii'es 
True Genius kindles, and fiiir Fame inspires; 
Blest with each talent and each art to please. 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease: 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone. 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, 
View him with scornful, j-et with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; ' 

Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; 
Alike reserved to blame or to commend, 
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend; 
Dreading ev'n Fools, by Flatterers besieged, 
And so obligins; that he ne'er obliged; 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 35 

When Francis said that Wilberforce, if it was 
left to him to decide whether Pitt should go out 
of office for ten months and the Slave-trade be 
abolished forever, or Pitt remain in — with the 
Slave-trade, Avould decide for Pitt — " Yes," said 
Fox, " I'm afraid he would be for Bax'abbas." 

Mentioned the extreme uneasiness he felt, when 
he spent even a single day in a town where he 
did not know the language. " You are imposed 
upon," says Tierney, " without even the satisfac- 
tion of knowing it." " Not only that," says Fox. 

He reads all the Novels. 

Thought Iphigenia the English for Iphigenia, 
as Virgil is for Virgilius. 

" I should not care," said he, " if I was con- 
demned never to stir beyond a mile from St. 
Anne's hill for the rest of my life." 

Very fond of the society of boys ; as also Mrs. 
Armstead.^ They have them over from Eton.^ 

Like Cato, give his little Senate laws, 
And sit attentive to his own applause; 
While Wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise — 
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? 
Who would not weep, if ATTICUS were he? " 

1 Afterwards Jlrs. Fox. 

2" I called yesterday ou Fox at St. Anne's, and found him 



36 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Dined with him at Serjeant Hey wood's, lOtli 
Dec. 1706. Present, Lord Derby, Lord Stanley, 
Lord Lauderdale, "VVm. Smith, Dr. Aikin, * * * 
Member for Durham, and Brogden. 

I always say, and always think, tliat of all the 
countries in Europe, England will be the last to 
be free. Russia will be free before England. 
The Russians know no better, and knowledge 
might and would operate on them to good ; but 
the English have the knowledge and the slavery 
too. 

Property will always have its influence. Were 
all the Landed men in the Country to unite in a 
mass, you will say that they might effect any- 
thing. Their income is twenty-five millions ; but 
the King's is the same, and thougli part merges 
in the intei'est of the debt, still you will grant it 
has its influence. 

drawing a pond to please an Eton boy, a son of the Bishop 
of Down. I told him he was committing a double crime, 
killing the poor fish and ruining Coss, for Coss has a per- 
petual holidaj' there. He left off, and we had some talk on 
the times. He has no hope." 

Lord Ersk'ine to S. B., July 17(h, 1798. 

[Dr. Dickson, Bishop of Down and Connor, was an inti- 
mate friend of Fox. Their intimacy began at Eton, and 
lasted till the bishop's death in ISOi.] 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 37 

A man must have a grand want of right feel- 
ing and right thinking, who does not like popu- 
larity, who does not wish the people about him, 
and for and with whom he acts, to be in good 
humor with him.-^ 

I love Tistablishments, and love law, but I detest 
the priests and the lawyers. 

AVere I to be tried, I vpould as soon be at the 
mercy of the bishops as the judges ; though the 
Archbishop of Armagh said to me twenty-five 
years ago — " Take care. The bishops would 
burn you if they pould." 
' A great man, who knew them both, told me, 

1 " His interest, his power, even his darling popularity." 
Biirhe, on Mr. Fox^s East India Bill. S. E. 

[I give the sentence entire from Mr. Burke's Speech in 
support of the Bill (House of Commons, 1 Dec. 1783), in 
order to show the opinion he then entertained of Mr. Fox. 
After praising the Bill, and saying he would leave its author 
to his own noble sentiments but for the unworthy and 
illiberal language with which he had been treated, he con- 
tinued thus: — 

" He has put to hazard his ease, his security, his interest, 
his power, even his darling popularity, for the benefit of 
a people whom he has never seen. This is the road that 
all heroes have trod before him, &c." — Pari. Hist, xxiii, 
1384. 

The Bill was rejected by the House of Lords.] 



38 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

'• The zeal of Kenyon will go as far as the cor- 
ruption of Buller"^ — but I cannot ascribe to 
Kenyon zeal alone. 

Treated Political Q^iconomy lightly. Said 
France had drawn her political knowledge from 
England. " "We knew nothing on that subject 
till Adam Smith wi'ote," said Lord Lauderdale. 
— " Poh," says Fox, "your Adam Smiths are 
nothing : — But that is his Love," says Fox, 
speaking of Lauderdale ; " we must spare him 
there." " I think," says Lauderdale, " it is every- 
thing." '• That," says Fox, " is a great proof of 
your affection." ^ 

" I wish I was Member for Westminster," 
said Lord L. "And I wish I was a Scotch 
Peer," said Fox. " Why so ? " — "I should then 
be disqualified." 

Did not admire any of Milton's verse ; thought 
it inverted and artificial, though the defect is less 
visible in the o-rand narts ; particularly liked 



1 At this time Lord Kenyon was Chief Justice of the 
King's Bench, and Buller was a Judge of the Common 
Pleas. 

- Lord Lauderdale afterwards published a work on this 
subject: "Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public 
Wealth," &c., by the Earl of Lauderdale. Edin. 1804. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 39 

" Fame, that last infirmity of noble minds," ' and 
the Sonnet to Skinner.^ 

Admired a poem just published, " The Plead- 
er's Guide," ^ and wished me to read it. 

In raptures with the Bath Guide, the best and 
almost only good thing of Anstey ; and spoke of 
that species of verse as remarkably easy, consist- 
ing principally of words of three syllables, one 
of which is dropped in heroic verse, being fully 
pronounced. 

The French, verse very bad ; as every syllable, 
except where there is a feminine termination, 
should be pronounced equally, which cannot be 
in the French verse ; and therefore it continually 
tortures the ear. 

1 See Lycidas, line 70, et seq. 

" Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of noble mind) 
To scorn delights, and live laborious days; 
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears. 
And slits the thin-spun life." 

2 There are two Sonnets to Cyriack Skinner, the 21st and 
22d of Milton's Sonnets. 

3 By Christopher Anstey, the author of the Bath 
Guide. 



40 • CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Admires two songs particularly in Aikin's col- 
lection/ but could never learn the names (" Now 
see my Goddess," &c. p. 133, and " 'Tis not the 
liquid brightness of those eyes.") Never much 
admired that song of G. Cooper's, "Away, let 
nought to love displeasing." 

Thought poetry " the great refreshment of the 
human mind," the only thing after all ; — that not 
a sum of arithmetic could be cast up at first 
without the aid of poetry. That men first found 
out they had minds by making and tasting poe- 
try. That Lauderdale was the only man he ever 
knew (he did not mean to pay him a compliment) 
who thought rightly on many things, without the 
love of poetry. 

Fox said he would never attack the judicature 
without Erskine's assistance, as his absence would 
be urged against him. Nor would he have at- 
tacked the Array department, if poor Burgoyne ^ 
had been alive, without his countenance. " The 
time will come," said Lord L., " when you must 

1 Essays on Song-writing, with a Collection of English 
Songs, by Dr. Aikin. 

2 General John Burgoyne commanded a part of the 
English army during the American war; signed the con- 
vention of Saratoga in October, 1777. M. P. for several 
years previous to his death, in 1792. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 41 

fight for your skin, without waiting for any 
man." — " When those times come, by God, I 
will do nothing. This I have always said, and 
will say — ' You will find me suffering and not 
doing. ^ " 

Everything is to be found in Homer. 

Admired parts of Paley's Moral Philosophy, 
and particularly a grand passage or two on Pub- 
lic Worship. Had looked over his other works 
but slightly. 

Plad read The Monk, a novel just pubhshed by 
Lewis ; thought it clever. 

Much pleased with a song of Parnell's, " My 
days have been so wondrous free," ^ — particularly 
the first two verses, which he repeated. Missed 
it in Aikin's Collection. 

Rather liked Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo ; and 
admired Lorenzo's poetry, who, he said, was cer- 

1 Love and Innocence, a song, by Parnell. 

" My days have been so wondrous free, 
The little birds, that fly 
With careless ease from tree to tree, 
Were but as bless'd as I. 

Ask gliding waters, if a tear 

Of mine increas'd their stream'? 

Or ask the flying gales, if e'er 
I lent one sigh to them? " 



42 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

tainly a good poet, as well as a great man. 
Particularly struck with an image of Jealousy ^ 
in one of his poems, I. 268. 

Talked much of Agriculture, and of the new 
method of draining lands, by means of boring 
them. 

Justified Roscoe's " Nearly two centuries ^ 
saw " as a loose way of writing, and not prop- 
erly a metaphor. 

Detested such as Johnson's " Existence saw 
him spurn her bounded reign " ^ — and not less 

1 " Solo una vecchia in un oscuro canto, 
Pallida, il sol fuggendo, si sedea, 
Tacita sospirando, ed un ammanto 
D'un incerto color cangiante havea: 
Cento ocelli ha in testa, e tutti versan piauto 
E cent' orecchie la maligna dea: 
Quel ch' ^, quel che non 6, trista ode e vede: 
Mai dorme, ed ostinata a se sol crede." 

2 I have not been able to find this expression in Eoscoe's 
works. Perhaps a more diligent inquirer might be more 
fortunate. 

3 Prologue spoken by Garrick at the opening of Drury 
Lane, 1747 ; — written by Johnson : — 

" When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes 
J'irst rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose; 
Each change of many-color'd life he drew, 
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new: 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 43 

the second line, " And panting time toiled after 
him in vain," as not only inelegant, but contrary 
to our ideas of time, which is generally repre- 
sented as swift. 

Met him (June, 1798,) on a pony at the park- 
gate, Penshurst, in a fustian shooting-jacket and 
a white hat. Mrs. Armstead was in a whiskey. 
He seemed much pleased with the house ; but 
had no wish to ride over the park, having seen 
enough from the road. 

When he first comes to town in Winter, he 
devotes two or three days to seeing sights and 
lion-hunting. 

When Courtenay was walking in his garden at 
St. Anne's, he asked for the kitchen garden ; — 
" You are now in the midst of it," replied Fox ; 
it is intermixed with the shrubs and flowers, and 
plays its part among them. 

Mrs. Armstead, when he returns fretted in an 

Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 
And panting time toil'd after him in vain," &c. 
I hardly think the world in general confirms Mr. Fox's 
criticism of these lines. 



44 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

evening, takes down a volume of Don Quixote or 
Gil Bias, and reads him into tranquillity. 

1802, October 19th, Paris. Walked up and 
down the Picture Gallery with ]Mr. and Mrs. 
Fox. He was pleased with Madame Le Brun's 
portrait of Lady Hamilton, and said it had the 
true Bolognese tint. 

N. Poussin, the only Painter who purposely 
omitted to do what he could. In his landscapes, 
brilliant ; in his historical pictures, dead, — cer- 
tainly intended them to represent ancient ones. 

Le Sueur's History of St. Bruno.^ Spoke of 
it with great warmth. — Poussin's deluge ! — Not 
such an admirer of Claude. — Guercino's circum- 
cision. Dominichino his great favorite. — Anni- 
bal Carracci : very fond of him. 

Thought Metastasio's Poem on the death of 
Abel the best of the last century. 

Read Homer, as Mrs. Fox said, more than any 
other writer. 

Neither Homer nor Virgil mention the singing 
of Birds.2 

1 A series of pictures by Le Sueur, of events in the life of 
St. Bruno. They are now in the Louvre, though probably 
at the time of Mr. Fox's visit in the Luxembourg. 

2 In a letter to Mr. Rogers, from a much valued friend, 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 45 

Thought the idea of collecting these fine things 
from all parts of the world a noble one, and be- 
lieved it was conceived by Bonaparte. Said it 
was a delightful walk, but by some impulse of 
the mind, one always looked at the same pictures. 
Had not been there for three weeks. 

The French had a right to these spoils of a 
conquered Country. 

Looked out of the Gallery Window, and thought 
the suii was burning up his turnips. 

Oct. 20th. Mara's concert and the ballet of 
Psyche at the Opera house. Sat between Mr. 
and Mrs. Fox : St. John ^ and R. Adair ^ behind. 



— the Honorable Edward Everett, lately ambassador from the 
United States, — dated 24 Dec.1850, the writer points out that 
Mr. Fox was here in error, as far as Virgil is concerned; 
and refers to the jEneid, viii. 456 : — 

" Et matutini volucrum sub culmine cantus." 

1 St. Andrew St. John, younger brother of Henry Beau- 
champ, Lord St. John of Bletsoe, to which title he succeeded 
on the death of his brother in 1805, and died in Oct. 1817. 
Before his accession to the peerage he had sat for many 
years in Parliament as member for Bedfordshire. He ac- 
companied Mr. Fox to Paris in 1802. 

2 Robert Adair, a relation of Mr. Fox; minister to 
Vienna in 1806, and on a mission to Constantinople in 



46 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Music ; — Portraits ; — wished he had sat only 
to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Said his sitting so often 
for his portrait was owing to her [Mrs. Fox], 
though he liked NoUekens's last bust,^ and thought 
it the best of all the likenesses. 

Cupid blind not older than the Italians. 

Tired of the ballet. 

Went to a concert afterwards at the Ban- 
ker's. 

Mrs. Fox said the only fault she could find 
with him was his aversion to music. The utmost 
she could say for him was that he could read 
Homer, while she played and sung to herself. 

Oct. 24th. Dined at Mr. Fox's. Present : Adair, 
St. John, Fitzpatrick,^ Le Chevalier, &c. 

English tlie most difficult of all languages — 
an union of many. Found King AYilliam wrote 



1807; — Privy Covmcillor and G. C. B.; died Oct. 1855, 
aged 92. 

1 See frontispiece to 4to edit, of Hist. James II. 

2 General Eicliard Fitzpatriclc, a very dear and intimate 
friend of Mr. Fox, who used to address liirn in liis letters 
by the title " Dear Dick." For many years in Parliament. 
His sister. Lady Mary Fitzpatrick, married Mr. Fox's elder 
brother Stephen, Lord Holland. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 47 

bad French — " Mon toux " instead of " Ma 
toux." The English articulate very ill. Gib- 
bon, if anybody, mastered two languages. 

Milton not English — could never forgive him 
for expecting to interest hini through twelve 
books, in which there was nothing like nature ; 
or for writing anything but English — full of 
inversions and affected phrases. Confessed him- 
self an anti-Miltonite — acknowledged the beauty 
of " beat out life," ^ and of his use of little 
words. 

Virgil remarkable for giving every incident a 
melancholy ending : — Orpheus and Eurydice ^ — 
Dido ^ — Nisus and Euryalus ^ — Lausus,^ &c. — 
A very melancholy man : Homer not so. Virgil 
wrote beautiful lines — his story has no interest. 

1 See Adam's vision of the sacrifices by Cain and Abel, 
and the death of Abel : — 

" His offering soon propitious fire from Heaven 
Consum'd with nimble glance, and grateful steam; 
The other's not, for his was not sincere ; 
Whereat he inly rag'd, and, as they talk'd, 
Smote him into the midriff with a stone 
That beat out life," &c. 

Paradise Lost, xi. 442, et seq. 

2 Georgics, iv. 454, et seq. 3 ^neid, iv. 651, et seq. 
4 j:neid, ix. 425, 445, &c. 5 Ibid. x. 815, &c. 



48 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Pope's comparison in his preface to Homer.-^ 
When a man writes a preface, he tries only to say 
an antithesis, and never thinks of the truth. 

Homer — the interview between Priam and 
Achilles his finest passage ; ^ Priam's kissing the 
hands of him who had slain his son ! Helen's 
lamentation over Hector.^ None more mistaken 
than those who think Homer has no delicacy ; 
he is full of it. Thought nothing more unlike 
Homer's similies than Milton's. Did Penelope 
never name Troy ? He had remarked that delicacy, 
and also her not mentioning Ulysses by name. 

I said in one respect the French had the ad- 
vantage of us. He said, indeed in almost every 
respect. 

Observed of Gibbon's History that if a man 
was to say, " I can't read it," and was to attempt 
to acquire the knowledge it contained by any 
other means, he would find it a hard task. Rob- 
ertson very superficial in comparison. 

Liked Lafond as well as Talma.* 



1 A comparison of Homer with Virgil runs tln-ougbout 
the preface. 
'■2 Iliad, XXIV. 472, &c. 

3 Ibid. 762, &c. 

4 Actors on the French stage. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 49 

» 

Thought the music of the ancients must have 
been as superior as their sculpture and poetry. 
Rose from table with Mrs. Fox. — Coffee. 

Oct. 28th. Met Mr. Fox in the Picture 
Gallery. 

Oct. 29th. Mr. and Mrs. Fox, St. John, and 
Fitzpatrick, called and carried me to the Luxem- 
bourg. Rubens — Le Sueur — Fox pi-eferred 
the history of St. Bruno -^ to any series of pictures 
whatever. Fitzpatrick mentioned Poussin's sac- 
raments. Fox preferred these, and admired 
particularly that of the messenger from the Pope 
delivering the letter — the death of the guilty man 
in the church — and the Preaching. When I said 
he was the best painter of the white habit, he 
repeated very pleasantly, Andrea Sacchi, Andrea 
Sacchi. 

In our way talked of the Abbe de Lille.^ 
Thought Virgil's Georgics the most difficult 
thing to translate in the World ; — Milton's Par- 

1 By Le Sueur. See above, p. 44. 

2 Jacques Delille was author of several poetical works on 
gardening, agriculture, &c. ; he translated Virgil's Georgics 
and Milton's Paradise Lost into French verse. 

4 



50 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

adise Lost less so. Fitzpatrick mentioned a 
translatoi' unacquainted with the language of his 
original, and to whom it was translated by another. 
Fox said he did not know whether that was not 
the best way — it would lead to more freedom and. 
less attention to words. Desirous to know which 
were the three translations considered by Warton 
as superior to the originals — Hampton's Poly- 
bius — Rowe's Lucan — and Melmoth's Pliny. 
To the French remark that a translator resembled 
a rope-dancer, he said Pope was an exception. (I 
suppose he meant as to the risk he ran.) 

Admired the Luxembourg Gardens — the vases 
and statues — Fitzpatrick cold — walked off to 
warm himself. 

Oct. 30th. Went to the Gobelins in a cabrio- 
let — met Fox, St. John, Fitzpatrick, Le Cheva- 
lier, De Grave.-^ 

Fox admired the Gobelins. 



1 Monsieur de Grave, who had been a Minister under the 
Republic for a short time, but was " unequal to the fatigues 
of office." Madame Roland described him as " a good- 
natured little man, unfit for an arduous situation, — rolling 
his large blue eyes, and falling asleep over his coffee." — 
Trotter's Meimirs of C. J. Fox, 245, 246. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 51 

Said of all pictures which came nearest to 
perfection in color, and which perhaps united 
most of the great qualities of the Art, was the 
St. Peter Martyr by Titian. 

Drove to the Garden of Plants and Museum 
of Minerals — treasures from which the Painter 
drew his colors of the rainbow. 

Petrifactions — many from Milan. Here he 
was very animated — could scarcely bring him- 
self to believe what he saw — fish in perfection 
inclosed in stone ! — Birds and Beasts — Had 
seen these before, but brought General Fitz- 
patrick, who delighted in curious bii'ds — The 
little birds — Mrs. F. said that she and Mr. F. 
spent much of their lime in watching the mo- 
tions of the little birds, when building, and rear- 
ing their young. Particularly struck with the 
jealousy of the bullfinch, the most jealous of all 
birds. 

Dined with ]\Ii\ and Mrs. Fox, La Fayette, 
Fitzpatrick, Adair, St. John, De Grave. A very 
handsome dinner. 

Abbe De Lille's Georgics.-^ 

1 L' Homme des Champs, ou les Georgiques Franpaises, 
po^me: par Jacques Delille. (Vide supra, p. 49.) 



52 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Vote for the King's death. Fox said that all, 
he believed, who were acted upon by fear, voted 
for it. They were afraid of the pubhc cry. 

La Fayette gave an account of Condorcet's 
death, who had borrowed some snuff in a paper 
at Suard's, and left it there.^ 

1803. January. A visit to St. Anne's — a 
small low white house on the brow of a hill, 
commanding a semicircular sweep, rich and 
woody. In the small drawing-room, Sir Joshua 
Reynold's Girl with tlie mouse-trap. In the 
hall, books and statues. The library on the first 
floor — small and unadorned — the books on open 
shelves. Engraved portraits, principally after 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, all over the house. In 
the garden passage a copy in black marble of 
the Eagle at Strawberry Hill ; and a bust of 
Hippocrates, with a Latin inscription by Lord 
Holland, found in Italy. In the eating-room a 

1 The Marquis of Condorcet died in a prison near Paris 
in March, 1794; he is generally believed to have poisoned 
himself, to avoid being put to death by Robespierre, against 
whom he had written, and who had issued a decree of ac- 
cusation against him in 1793, which had caused Condorcet 
to lie hid in Paris for nine months. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 53 

portrait of Lord Holland sitting, carefully painted 
by Reynolds ; and of Lady Holland sitting, by 
Ramsey. Several good old pictures. In the 
garden a handsome architectural greenhouse, and 
a temple after a design of Lord Nevvburgh, (who 
also designed Kingsgate,^ and of whose taste he 
thinks highly,) containing busts of Charles J. 
Fox, Lord Holland, and a son of Lord Boling- 
broke, all by NoUekens. The garden laid out 
in open and shrubbery walks, trees breaking the 
prospect everywhere. The kitchen gai'den a 
square, not walled, and skirted by the walk. In 
the lower part is sometliing in imitation of the 
Nuneham Flower-garden. There is a terrace- 
walk, thickly planted, to a neat farm-house ; in 
which there is a tea-room, the chimney-piece re- 
lieved with a Fox. The drawing-room prettily 
furnished with pink silk in panels, inclosed with 
an ebony bead, and a frame of blue silk ; made 
of old gowns. 

Had just read Euripides. Alcestis his favorite. 
Hercules's resolution, " I must do some gi'eat 



1 At Kingsgate, Isle of Thanet, is a house looking on the 
German Ocean, built by Heniy Lord Holland, who occa- 
sionally resided there. 



54 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

thing. I have used them ill."^ Heraclides, 
" And these men wore Greek habits ! " ^ — he 
repeated these instances twice. 

Thought Sidney Biddulph ^ the best novel of 
our age. Sheridan denied having read it, though 
the plot of his School for Scandal was borrowed 
from it. The close of the second part very 
excellent. 

The Greek Historians were all true ; the Ro- 
mans liars, particularly Livy, who never scrupled 
to teU a story as he pleased. 

The Queen a bad woman — the King distrustful 
of everybody — not from education only. There 
is such a thing as a suspicious nature. The Prince 
quick ; he would not have ventui-ed to treat the 

1 This is a very free translation by Mr. Fox. The words 
in the original to which he alluded, and from which he took 
his idea, so shortly expressed in the text, are as follow : — 

'i2 noUa rTiaca Kapdia, tpvxv t' if^V 
Nvv del^ov, olov Tralda a' r/ Tipvv&ia 
'HTiEKTpvLjvoc yeivar' ' A?iK/j.rjV7j A«. 

Alcestis Euripidis, 854, et seq. 

2 Here, again, Mr. Fox gives the effect rather than a 
translation : — 

Kal (iTjv aToTJfjv y' "Wihjva koI (jvd^/xbv ttettTiuv 
'ExEi.' Ileracluhe Euripidis, 130. 

3 Memoirs of Sidney Biddulph, by Mrs. Sheridan, mother 
of R. B. Sheridan. She died 1767. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 55 

Princess as he did publicly, if not encouraged b}' 
somebody. 

Ministers wish for peace, but have not the 
courage to be peaceable. 

Robertson's Life of Columbus ivell written. 

Pope's Sylphs are the prettiest invention in the 
world, but will never do again. 

Lear, Othello, Macbeth, the best plays of Shaks- 
peare. Fii-st act of Hamlet preeminent — the 
Ghost the first ever conceived in every respect — 
Hamlet not really mad. Wonders whether Shaks- 
peare had ever seen a translation of Euripides — 
so like him in many places — particularly in 
Queen Catherine's taking leave of her servants, 
where he reminds you of Alcestis. 

Metastasio. He wrote indeed in a most poeti- 
cal language ; but that was not his fault. Titus ; 
Isacco ! " And am I he ! " ^ Mixture of ode and 
couplet very pleasing in him. 

1 " Isacco. Ah, Signer, dopo il presagio 
Dell' Ospite stranier, di cui la madi-e 
Rider s' udi, dimmi, che avenue ? Ah dimmi 
Sol questo e parth'o. Abramo. L'evento in breve 
II presagio avvero. Grave s'intese 
Sara fra poco il sen. Germe novello 
In sua stagion produsse. Isacco. Ed io son quelle ? 
Abramo. Si, figlio," &c. 

Metasfasio's Isacco. Part I. 



56 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Read Homer more than once a year. 

-^sohylus very difficult. Samson Agonistes 
said by Bishop Newton to be equal to Euripides ! 

A distant prospect indispensable for a house. 

Wondered I was not partial to rhyme. The 
ancients could do without it ; but their verse was 
not superior to it. It is at least equal to ancient 
verse, and perhaps the most perfect thing yet 
invented. It is a thing to repose upon, and often 
suggests the thought. Blank verse is perhaps 
best for dramatic poetry. 

Vanbrugh almost as great a genius as ever 
lived. Sir John Brute — " And this woman will 
get a husband ! " ^ Confederacy,^ from the French ; 
with so much the air of an original ! Who would 
have thought it ? 

Josephine a very pleasing woman. 

He loved children. 

The poets wrote the best prose — Cowley's very 
sweet ; Milton's excepted — more extravagant 
than his verse, as if written in ridicule of the latter. 

Who do you think the best writer of our time ? 
I'll tell you who I think — Blackstone. 

1 From the Comedy of " The Provoked Wife," by Sir 
John Vanbrugh. 

2 Also a Comedy by Sir John Vanbrugh. 



CHARLES JAMi^S FOX. 57 

Very candid — Retracts instantly — Continually 
putting wood on the fire — His Trajan, his Venus, 
his Mosaics from Tivoli — His attachment to par- 
ticular books — his commonplace-book — they 
keep a journal at home and abroad. 

Did not think much of Tickell, junior — pretty 
well. 

Read aloud one evening in the libi-ary Gray's 
Fragment,^ " Scent the new fragrance of the 
breathing rose." It was rather unlucky that the 
rose blew in the north of Europe. 

If he had a boy, would make him write verses ; 
the only way of knowing the meaning of words. 

Ghosts and witches the best machinery for a 
modern epic. 

Priam and Helen ^ — badly copied in Euripides ; 
worse in Tasso. 

1 " Oft have issued, host impelling host, 
The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic Coast." 
" With grim delight the brood of winter view 
A brighter day, and heav'ns of azure hue ; 
Scent the new fragrance of the breatliing rose, &c." 

Gray's Fragment : on the Alliance of Education 
and Government, supra. 
2 It is probable Mr. Fox referred to the description of 
the Grecian chiefs given by Helen to Priam on the walls 
of Troy; Iliad, iii. 171, et seq. There is a similar de- 
scription in the Phnenissse of Euripides, line 88, et seq. ; and 



58 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Johnson's preface to Shakspeare the best thing 
on the subject. His treatment of Gray, Waller, 
and Prior abominable ; especially Gray. As for 
me / love all the ^^oets. 

Lord Lansdowne ^ certainly a magnificent man ; 
with no remai'kable taste for pictures or fine 
things, but thinking them fit for a man of his 
station, and wishing at least to acquire distinc- 
tion in that way. 

Lord Bute still more a magnificent man than 
Lord Lansdowne, with more taste, that is, more 
love for those things. 

Blenheim wanted buildings in the grounds ; 
admired the private ride round by the water. 

Cowper's Epistle to Joseph Hill, Esq. his best 
work. Windham brought hira first acquainted 
with Cowper's works. 

His conversation with Bonaparte misrepre- 
sented ; who only said, " There are those who 
think Mr. Windham," " II y a cependant ceux 
qui pensent," &c.^ 

Tasso has introduced a somewhat simnar passage in his 
Gerusalemme Liberata, Canto 3. 

1 William, Marquis of Lansdowne, who died in 1805. 

2 Mr. Fox had dined with Bonaparte, and afterwards 
spent the evening with him in Mrae. Bonaparte's apart- 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 59 

Dryden exquisite — no man reasons like him 
in verse — his defence of transubstantiation ■■■ — 
his verses to Congreve admirable,'^ but in gen- 
eral deficient in feeling and tenderness. 

Pope failed most, I think, in sense — he seldom 
knew what he meant to say. 

Romeo and Juliet — In the play, Romeo dies 
before Juliet awakes — not so in the novel, and 
better, and not now acted so. 

Are there any ancient fables ? 

Nisus and Euryalus ^ — preferred it, he owned, 
to Ulysses and Dioraed ; * though the last always 
a favorite. Repeated " Me, me, &c." ^ He had 
lately written on the subject to Uvedale Price in 
a critical letter. 



ments in the Tuileries on 1st Sept. 1802. Trotter describes 
the account given by Mr. Fox the same evening of his con- 
versation with the 1st Consul, in which account Mr. Fox 
stated that the 1st Consul had reproached Mr. Windham 
with having aided the plot of the Infernal Machine ; and 
that Mr. Fox had given the statement a positive contra- 
diction. — Trotter's Memoirs of Fox, 316, 317. 

1 In the Hind and the Panther, part i. &c. 

2 Epistle to Mr. Congreve on his comedy called " The 
Double Dealer." 

3 iEneid, ix. 4 Iliad, x. and xi. 
5 ^neid, ix. 427. 

4- 



60 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

I have no faith in Bruce. To hear him talk is 
enough. 

Pope — Eloisa to Abelard is full of passion 
and beauty, though many things in it might be 
wished otherwise. 

Congreve rich — wrote little — seldom seen — 
did not make himself cheap — therefore so highly 
rated by his contemporaries. 

I write with difficulty. Perhaps with the 
greater ease a man speaks, with the greater 
difficulty he writes. I believe so. 

Pictures — I like them. 

Hume — A. D. 1399. "The murder of Glou- 
cester," &c. to " Authority requisite for the exe- 
cution of the laws," a very profligate sentiment, 
and noted in my commonplace-book. 

Trees — birds — nightingales — No ancient and 
no modern poets except the English mention 
much the singing of birds.^ Virgil not once in 
his Georgics — doubts whether Catullus's Passer ^ 
was more than a little bird. 

Doubtful whether he should introduce notes 
into his history ^ — had determined against it. 

^ See the same remark, in different words, above, p. 44. 
2 " Ad passerem Lesbice " and " Funus passeris." 

Catullus. 
^8 History of Reign of James II. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 61 

Much perplexed how to interweave his new 
matter from Paris into the text already written. 
Should he use dashes or not ? Wished much to 
introduce speeches, but said it would not do. 

Lord Hervey's verses on Pope ^ very good, 
though Burke did not think so. 

Pope's letters very bad — I think him a foolish 
fellow, upon the whole, myself — but he has cer- 
tainly feeling ; and I like him best when not a 
satirist. 

Gray — no man with that face could have 
been a man of sense. His Essay on Educa- 
tion ^ and his Churchyard, his best works. The 

1 Pope, in his Imitation of the 1st Satire of the 2d 
Book of Horace, published in 1732, had ridiculed Lord 
Hervey under the contemptuous name of Lord Fanny. 
And Lord Hervey retaliated in some anonymous verses, 
entitled, " Letter from a Nobleman at Hampton Com-t to 
a Doctor of Divinity." These, I suppose, are the verses 
to which Mr. Fox refers. Pope afterwards replied, in 
some lines in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (published in 
Jan. 1734-5), in which he abused Lord Hervey, by the 
name of Sporus, in most severe and bitter language. And 
the same description of Satire on Lord Hervey is continued 
in the Imitation of the 2d Satire of the 1st Book of Horace, 
and elsewhere in Pope's works. 

2 The Alliance of Education and Government. Vide 
mpra, p. 32. 



62 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Nile ! ^ — (when he came to that passage in 
reading it, his face brightened, his voice rose, 
and he looked to me,) — a very learned and 
extraordinary man. 

Repeated with Mrs. Fox that song of Mrs. 
Barbauld's, " Come here, fond youth, whoe'er 
thou be " ^ — the first verse full of bad grammar. 

The Italian historians, perhaps the best mod- 
ern ones ; but I think very well of Hume, I 
own. 

Marbles — I must have NoUekens's bust of 
Brutus. 

Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke I have not got — 
I think little of them I own — though Boling- 
broke's Essay on History I read with some 
pleasure the other day at Woburn. 

Gibbon a great coxcomb — his portrait by Sir 
Joshua Reynolds is over the fireplace at Lau- 
sanne, and he used to look at it as often as if it 

1 " What wonder, in the sultry climes, that spread 
Where Nile redundant o'er his summer-bed 
From his broad bosom life and verdure flings, 
And broods o'er Egypt with his wat'ry wings. 
If with advent'rous oar and ready sail, 
The dusky people drive before the gale." 

The Alliance of Education, <^c. 
2 Mrs. Barbauld's Works, n. 73. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 63 

had been his mistress's. — Observed again that if 
any man were to say, " I don't Hke his history, 
I will acquire the information another way," 
he would find it a very hard task. Lausanne 
a pleasant cheerful place independent of its 
scenery. 

A Buffon — I wish for one colored. 

Rousseau used Hume very ill.^ 

Temples in gardens — wished for a temple to 
the Muses — wished any body would let him 
build him one. Lord Newburgh, a man of great 
taste, — has built a temple for me ; ^ perhaps 
there are too many at Stowe. 

Lonesome ^ — Fredly Farm ^ — (never known 
by him with that name) — Norbury ^ — The 
Rookery ^ — View from a hill above Godwood. 

Lansdowne Library — always liked it — so 
vast, so retired — the ancient chimney-piece — 
always liked the idea of a large room in the midst 



1 Hume had been at great pains to assist Rousseau, who 
nevertheless, on a most groundless suspicion, renounced 
Hume's friendship, and rejected his proffered services. 

2 Vide siqira., p. 53. 

■8 Gentlemen's houses in the neighborhood of Dorliing 
and Jlickleham, whose beautiful scenery was often visited 
by Mr. Rogers. 



64 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

of a great city — lighted from the sky and into 
which you could go and say — "I shut you all 
out." Saw one at Dublin — belonging to Lord 
Charlemont. 

Preferred Box Hill to Leith Hill.^ 

Lock ^ must do everything with taste. 

A distance essential to a house. 

Green Park ^ the best situation in London. 

Preferred the Boulevards to Piccadilly, in 
Spring. 

Alps — Swiss Lakes lovely — Italian lakes 
much more busy — Returned from Italy very 
fast — was there with Windham. 

Wondered again whether Shakspeare had ever 
seen a translation of Euripides.* 

The World very superior to the Adventurer — 
was very much pleased with it lately. 

Nobody but very young girls could like Love- 
lace — perhaps they might. 



1 Both in the neighborhood of Dorking. 

2 Then the owner of Norbury Park, near Dorking. 

3 Mr. Rogers had lately bought a house in St. James's 
Place, looking into the Green Park, and had altered and 
nearly rebuilt it. In this house he resided till his death, 
in 1855. 

4 Vide supra, p. 55. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 65 

Thomas, Lord Lyttelton — a wicked man — a 
complete rascal, to be sure. Liked his father's 
verses, " The heavy hours are almost past." ^ 

Always think of what Lord • used to say, 

that nothing is so easy as for young people to 
make fools of old people whenever they please. 

Liked to meet with grand houses in wild and 
desert places — to step from dreariness into splen- 
did apartments. Chatsworth struck him particu- 
larly in this way. 

Demosthenes and Cicero. "Wondered why so 
judicious a writer as Quintilian should think of 
comparing them,^ as each had what the other 
wanted. Demosthenes had vehemence — Cicero 
had playful allusions, beautiful images, philosoph- 
ical digressions. Admired Demosthenes most; 
he was certainly the greater orator — but he read 
Cicero with most pleasure, and that, perhaps, 

1 The fixther's name was George, Lord Lyttelton, author 
of numerous poems, as well as other works. He died in 
1773. He was an amiable, honorable, and virtuous man. 
His son, Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, who is described as the 
very reverse of his father in moral character and conduct, 
died suddenly and (as is believed) by his own hand in 
1779. — General Biography. 

2 Quintilian, Book x. c. 1, passim, but particularly sec- 
tions 105, 108. 

5 



66 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

was one proof among others why Demosthenes 
was the better orator. Cicero's letters did indeed 
fill a great gap in the Roman History — they 
were almost the whole of it. 

Mickleham the most beautiful valley within 
two hundred miles of London. 

All roads from town are disagreeable — the Ken- 
sington road is thought the best, but it must be on 
account of its setting out through Hyde Park. 

That song,-' " 'Tis not the liquid lustre of thine 
eyes," perhaps the best ever written. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds had no pleasure at Rich- 
mond ^ — he used to say the human face was his 
landscape. 

A foolish song " When lovely woman stoops to 
folly " ^ — a bad rhyme to melancholy. 

1 " 'Tis not the liquid brightness of those eyes 

That swim with pleasure and delight; 

Nor those fair heavenly arches which arise 

O'er each of them to shade their light; 

***** 

But 'tis that gentle mind, that ardent love, 

So kindly answering my desire ; 
That grace with which you look, and speak, and move, 
That thus have set my soul on fire," &c. 

Aikin's Essays on Song Writing. 

2 He had a house on Richmond Hill. 
8 Vicar of Wakefield, c. 24. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 67 

Approach to Lord Cadogan's, near Reading, 
very fine. 

Voyage from Henley to Maidenhead bridge. 
He was one who thought one steep bank suffi- 
cient, and better than two. 

Raleigli a very fine writer. Lord Surrey too 
old. 

Always thought Mason to blame for suppress- 
ing Gray's translations — surely the most valu- 
able kind of thing to an English reader is a good 
translation.^ 

Sir Joshua Reynolds — the grand not his forte. 
Liked best his playful characters — not even his 
Ugolino satisfied him — the boys in his Holy 
Family exquisite. 

Petrarch. — Was never much struck with him 
— his sonnets the worst of him — liked his let- 
ters. 

Dante a much greater man — and Boccaccio 
also, whose sentences are magnificent. 

Revival of letters — Where w-ould you begin ? 
with the Medici? then you leave those men be- 

1 Two translations by Gray from Propertius, and one from 
Tasso's Gerus. Lib. omitted by Mason, have since been pub- 
lished in JIathias's edition of Gray's works, London, 1814; 
and later in Mitford's Gray. 



68 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

hind you. The middle ages never very dark ; 
always producing some able men. 

There is nothing more in favor of wine than 
the many disagreeable substitutes for it which 
are used in countries where it is not found ; such 
as betel-root, 02^1 um, «&;c. 

After all Burke was a damned wrongheaded 
fellow through life — always jealous and contra- 
dictory. 

No man, I maintain, could be ill-tempered, who 
wrote so much nonsense as Swift. 

Perhaps the most original character and most 
masterly in Shakspeare, is Macbeth. It is no- 
where else to be found — exciting our pity at first, 
and gradually growing worse and worse — till at 
last the only virtue that remains in him is his 
courage. 

I have no idea of Physiognomy and its rules 
as to the mind ; perhaps right sometimes as to 
the temper. Lord Redesdale a remarkably silly 
looking man ; and so indeed in reality. Pitt, I 
cannot see any indications of sense in him — did 
not you know what he is you would not discover 
any.i 

How delightful to lie on the grass, with a 

1 Gray thought otherwise. S. K. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 69 

book in your hand, all day — Yes — but why 
with a book? 

Had liked Virgil best in his youth.-' 

1805. July 17. Set out at eleven with Court- 
ney ^ and a brace of Weymouth trout. Arrived 
at three. Were met by Mr. Fox in the garden. 
He wore a white hat, a light colored coat, and 
nankeen gaiters. 

Gnats very numerous — Cold summer. 

Meant to resume his history in a fortnight. 
Hitherto much occupied in letter-writing. 

In a letter-writing mood wrote to Dr. Bardsley 
of Manchester on his pamphlet against bull-bait- 
ing.^ Not against it himself; thought the outcry 
against the common people unjust, while their 
betters hunted and fished. Was decidedly in 
favor of boxing. 

Was very indulgent to works of taste. 

Had written to Roscoe concerning proper 
names — disapproved altogether of his pi-actice. 

1 Lord Holland possesses his school Virgil full of praises, 
and can now account for his having often said — " Virgil is 
always our first favorite." S. E. 

2 Vide svpra, p. 31. 

3 Samuel Argent Bardsley, M. D. on the Use and Abuse of 
Popular Sports and Exercises. — 3fem. Manch. Soc. vol. i. 



70 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

His instance of Louis, in the introduction, par- 
ticularly against hira.-^ 

Hume — his quotations at full length from other 
writers — sometimes altered in the language for 
no purpose — as in the case of a passage from 
Burnet, Avhose language certainly required no 
alteration. The practice of quoting gave great 
variety to his style. 

Homer — Iliad and Odyssey — Knight ^ was 
coming to read his arguments why they were 
written by different people — Was inclined to say 
he would not believe it. 

Would not say he would rather have written 
the Odyssey — but knows he would rather read it. 

1 Roscoe, in his preface to his Life of Leo X., published 
shortly before the date of this conversation, had justified 
the practice he had adopted of designating the scholars of 
Italy by their national appellations; and of his spelling 
the name of the King of France as Louis XIL (the name 
he himself recognized,) and not Lewis XIL which latter 
spelling Roscoe admitted to be the English mode. — Pref. 
to Leo X. \st edit. It appears by Roscoe's later editions 
that he was not induced by Mr. Fox's criticism to alter his 
practice. 

2 Richard Payne Knight; he afterwards published an 
edition of Homer, with notes containing arguments to the 
effect here mentioned by Mr. Fox ; he was a near relative of 
Mr. Rogers. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 71 

Believed it to be the first tale in the world. That 
everlasting combat in the Iliad he never could 
get over. 

Mrs. Barbauld's Life of Richardson admirable — 
always wished she had written more, and not 
misspent her time in writing books for children, 
now multiplied beyond all bounds — though hers 
were the best. 

Two or three chapters of Paley ^ on Public 
Worship capital in thought and language. Paley 
a great temporizer. 

Had just read Gray's two odes ^ — excellent 
but with some faults. Liked particularly the 
first two stanzas in the Bard — and that in the 
other ode, " In climes beyond the Solar road " ^ — 
This the best of all. 



1 See Book V. Chapters 4, 5, &c. of Paley's Morai Philos- 
ophy, where the subject of Public Worship is discussed. 
See also stipra, p. 41. 

- From what follows, it appears Mr. Fox must have in- 
tended by "Gray's two odes," The Bard and The Ode on 
the Progi-ess of Poesy; though he mentions other odes of 
Gray shortly below. 

3 " In climes beyond the solar road, 
Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, 

The Muse has broke the twilight gloom 
To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. 



72 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Had read Euripides with great deliglit.^ 

Tlie Electra of Sophocles his best. 

Shakspeare after all affected him most. I like 
the three Henrys (in answer to some objection of 
mine) ; the character of Henry always excellently 
kept up. 

Liked Pope, but thought him much inferior to 
Dryden. — Fitzpatrick Avas a great Popist, and 
would not hear of the Rape of the Lock as his 
best. Perhaps his Homer should be mentioned 
as his great work after all. 

Bolingbroke — did not like him. 

It was the fashion to say surgeons were always 
right. 

Had heard no nightingales here this spring — 
but many thrushes. 

" And oft beneath the od'rous shade 

Of Chili's boundless forests laid, 
She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat 

In loose numbers wildly sweet 
Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves. 
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves, 
Glory pursue, and generous Shame, 
Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flume.'" 
PTogress of Poesy, ii. 2. 
1 Mr. Fox, in his correspondence edited by Lord John 
Russell, III. 178, remarks that of all poets Euripides appeared 
to him the most useful for a public speaker. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 73 

The only foundation for toleration is a degree 
of skepticism ; and without it there can be none. 
For if a man believes in the saving of souls, he 
must soon think about the means ; and if, by- 
cutting off one generation, he can save many fu- 
ture ones from Hell-fire, it is his duty to do it. 

Never heax'd Burke say he was no Christian ; 
but had no reason to think he w^as one — certainly 
no papist. 

Hume's best volumes the first volume (quarto) 
of the Stuarts, and the last of the Tudors : Eliz- 
abeth, James the First, and Charles the First. 
Charles the Second's reign, and the Revolution, 
very briefly and negligently hurried over. The 
earlier history well enough written ; but not so 
well. 

Virgil's " O fortunatos, &c." ^ the most beautiful 



1 fortunatos nimiiim, sua si bona norint, 
Agricolas, quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis, 
Fundit liumo facilem victum justissima tellus ! 
Si noil ingentem foribus domus alta superbis 
Man6 salutantum totis vomit jedibus uodam; 
Nee varios inhiant pulchra testudine postes, 
Illusasque auro vestes, Ephyreiaque ajra : 

* * * * * * 

At secura quies, et nescia faliere vita, 
Dives opum variarura; at latis otia fundis, 



74 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

thing in the world, and with less of his melancholy 
than usual, which is so apt to break out in every 
part of him — his " sua si bona " indeed an ex- 
ception and very melancholy. — Such unaffected 
tenderness in Virgil ! 

A garden. 

Epicurus's philosojjhy — spoke of it with en- 
thusiasm as grand and affectingr. 

Quoted Horace — "An vigilare metu exanimem, 
noctesque diesque." ^ 

Ghosts — No man, however theoretically an un- 
believer, but practically a believer more or less. 

Knew Gibbon well.^ 

Believes he could repeat all Horace's Odes by 
to-morrow morning with a little recollection. 

Remembers saying to the Bishop of Down ^ at 
Oxford — " Come, let us have no more study — 
Let us read all the Plays we can find." 



Speluncgs, vivique lacus; at frigida Tempe, 
Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub arbore somni, 
Non absunt, &c. 

Geargics, ii. 458, et seq. 

1 Satirarum, Lib. i. Sat. 1, 76. 

2 Vide infra as to Mr. Fox's visit to Gibbon at Lausanne, 
p. 78. 

3 Vide sujjra, p. 36. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 75 

In hunting a bookseller's shop met with Mas- 
singer, and was much struck with him. 

Prefers the Traveller to the Deserted Village 
on the whole. Knew Goldsmith well, but had 
heai'd nothing of him before the Traveller — he 
was amazingly foolish sometimes. 

Foote, at the time, was run down as a Writer 
and an Actor ; but was often excellent in both. 
So happy in some of his parts. 

At Lord E. Bentinck's table Foote overcame 
us, though we had resolved to take no notice of 
him. 

Was Garrick of the original [literary] club ? 
Malone could tell us. That is just what Malone 
is good for. — Laughed heartily. 

Laughed at Johnson's saying Lord Chatham 
would not suffer Lord Camden to sit down in his 
presence. Burke used to say it might be true in 
part. Laughed again. 

Herodotus uses us ill m saying he knows 
more than he will tell us.-^ Then why say so? 
Laughed. — A charming writer. 

1 Herodotus often follows this course, using some such 
phrase as the following: " Concernuig these, at the same 
time that I confess myself sufficiently informed, I feel my- 
self compelled to be silent." — Herodotus, ii. 171, et scq. 



76 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

The Confederacy ^ better than the Bourgeois 
Gentilliomme. 

Could repeat Gray's Ode to the Spring, he was 
sure, and many more. 

Did not like Mickle, and never read his Lu- 
siad through. — Saw him once and took a dislike 
to him. 

I am senior member of the club,^ and the only 
original member, except Bishop Percy. 

Pork is excellent in all its shapes ; and I can- 
not conceive why it was ever prohibited — it is 
good in Otaheite, and of course in the East. 

The Chinese an odd people. Political Economy 
is certainly best understood in China. 

Fairfax's Tasso preeminent — Always wondered 
at Hoole's presumption in translating after him. 

Hobbes's preface to Thucydides very fine. 

Virgil soothing — I said I loved sedatives. He 
said, I don't know — agitations have always been 
considered as the greatest pleasures. 

Sheridan was now all despondence — always in 
an extreme. Sheridan, when talking of his own 

1 A play by Sir John Vanbrngh. 

2 The Literary Club. S. K. According to Boswell 
(vol. I.) neither Mr. Fox nor Bishop Percy were original 
members. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 77 

superiority, often said that he expected wings to 
shoot out from his elbows. 

Gorcum, a town in Holland, where nothing 
was talked but Dutch, and where signs were ne- 
cessary. Could not remember the name at din- 
ner — Many minutes afterwards stretched his 
arm across. the table, and cried out "Gorcum!" 
How odd it is to be sure, when one is hunting 
after a word, when you burn, and think you 
almost touch him, but not quite — if I had not 
caught him then, I had lost him. 

Often in speaking, when a thing occurs to me 
and it is not the time to bring it out, I know I 
shall lose it when I want it, and never fail to do so. 

Grattan : his success in our house. Had heard 
him in Ireland, and was confident. Grattan him- 
self was apprehensive. Never was anything so 
soon decided — in five minutes — though his friends 
feared, and iiis enemies were sure of his failure. 

Had a great desire to see Lord Spencer's 
library. 

His History-^ — now very much out of his 
thoughts. Could get (Mrs. Fox said she be- 
lieved) £5000 for two volumes. Phillips the 

i Fox's History of the Keign of James II. 



78 \ CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

bookseller had written, saying he had heard of 
an offer of £10,000 — if so, he should make no 
offer. Thought he might interweave extracts, as 
Hume had done, but that would not do, alto- 
gether. How far had he gone ? To the account 
of Argyle's death and Monmouth's conspiracy. — 
The last was written, but not written out by Mrs. 
Fox.i 

Thought Milton was often remarkable for Har- 
mony, and did not agree with Knight.^ 

Knight's character of Achilles very just. 

La Harpe's seemed a pretty book.^ Had read 
a little and liked it. 

When at Lausanne, Gibbon came to them at 
the inn and asked them to dinner — said he would 
ask some friends the next day, and we found them 
very agreeable people — the dinner very elegant 
and quiet, and just as could be wished. Two 
very pleasant days. 

Found it very hot on the canals in Holland. 

1 The work as published extends to the death of Argyle, 
and the consph-acy and death of Monmouth. 

2 Richard Payne Knight, in his Analytical Inquiry into 
the Principles of Taste, writes on this subject. Part ii. 
ch. i. 

8 Lyc^e, ou cours de litt«^rature ancienne et moderne; 
published between 1799 and 1805? 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 79 

Fitzpatrick erect and in high spirits at Paris. 

The Prince drank three wineglasses of liqueur 
here in succession last week. 

Saw a good deal of Hume. 

Liked wood-strawberries best. 

The Bowling-green at Holland-house mown 
every day — The lawn twice a week — Liked a 
bowling-green, and lamented he could not make 
one here. 

Should make more garden still, if he could 
afford it. Liked a garden. Roses so much per 
pound. Let us plant roses in the wheat-field, if 
they will fetch so much per pound. 

Liked the Cuckoo. Nightino-ales at Holland- 
house. 

Cervantes. His description of an inn-kitchen 
would suit any country.-^ 

Weston's surprise at Sophia's thinking of any 
body below her.^ 

1 Mr. Fox must mean tlie laughable and natural account 
of Sancho's attempt at the Inn to obtain a supper for his 
master and himself, when the host, after promising that his 
Inn could furnish " whatever the air, earth, and sea pro- 
duced, of birds, beasts, or fishes," confessed at last that he 
could give his guests nouglit but a pair of cow-heels stewed 
with onions. — Don Quixote^ part ii. ch. 59. 

'^ Fielding's Tom Jones. 



80 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

At Lord Keppel's every body so glad to see 
him so well — could not conceive why, till he 
found he had been said in the papers to be dan- 
gerously ill. 

A Bat's wing very beautiful. 

Burns about as clever a man as ever lived. 
Lord Sidmouth thought him a better poet than 
Cowper. I cannot say but that he had a better 
understanding. 

Did not like Curi'ie's Life of Burns, so affect- 
edly written. 

Tam o' Shanter his best. Cotter's Saturday 
Night contains some things best of all. 

Lord Melville's intention to deprive Burns of 
his place, the worst thing he was ever guilty of. 
" I feel the gales that from ye blow 
" A momentary bliss bestow." -^ 

" 'Tis folly to be wise." ^ — 'Tis a misfortune to 
be knowing, it should be. 

Likes " honied " ' in Gi'ay. 

1 Gray's Ode on Distant Prospect of Eton College. 
2 " Still is the toiling hand of Care; 
The panting herds repose ; 
Yet hark, how thi-ough the peopled air 

The busy murmur glows ! 
The insect youth are on the wing, 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 81 

Liked Laing ^ better than any Scotchman he 
ever saw. 

Shenstone's Schoohnistress — he wrote nothing 
else. 

Every farmer stops his horse in the lane, and 
talks with him over the pales about the corn and 
the weather. 

Fitzpatrick not quite so severe a critic as he 
seems — he makes a face and turns up his brow. 

Hippocrates. Thought all the extracts from 
him admirable, and determined to read him — had 
never possessed him — admired particularly his 
Aphorism, " The second best remedy is better 
than the best, if the patient likes it best." 

Could not bear the sight of honey-dew. 

Dame's school — I love too much better than 
enough, as little Edward says. 

Eager to taste the honied spring, 
And float amid the liquid noon : 
Some lightly o'er the current skim, 
Some show their gaily-gilded trim 
Quick-glancing to the sun." 

Ode on the Spriiiff. 

1 Malcolm Laing, author of a History of Scotland from 
the Union of the Crowns to the Union of the Kingdoms, a 
work Mr. Fox prized highly. He was M. P. for Orkney, 
and attached to Mr. Fox's party. 
6 



82 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

In Burns, liked the first line to a Mouse,^ with- 
out understanding it — and those to the Devil.^ 

Frantic Lover and Ode to Poverty were often 
ascribed to him (Fox), but he did not write them. 

Sheridan denied having read Sidney Biddulph,^ 
but it was in the heat of an argument. 

Sheridan had always the greatest intolerance 
for all plagiarism. 

Tickell's verses on Addison's death perfect. 
Liked much of his Kensington.* 

Could not remember a line of his own speeches. 

" As Gypsies do stolen children " — Sheridan ^ 



1 Lines to a Mouse, beginning 

" Wee, sleeltit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie." 

2 Addi-ess to the De'll, beginning — , 

" thou ! whatever title suit thee, 
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nicl<, or Clootie, 
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, 

Closed under hatches, 
Spairges about the bninstane cootie 

To scaud poor wretches! " 

3 Bj' Mrs. Sheridan, the mother of R. B. Sheridan. 
■* Kensington Gai-den, a poem, by Thomas Tickell. 

5 " They may serve your best thoughts as gypsies do sto- 
len children, disfigm'e them to make 'em pass for their 
own." — Clitic, Act i. Sc. 1. 



CHARLES JA3IES FOX. 83 

took it from Steele ^ and Steele from Wycher- 
ley.^ 

Nobody dies ! what becomes of all the people ? 
Inimitable acting of in saying this. 

Three Politicians in Fielding ^ (the first by far 
too profound to speak) gave Sheridan the idea of 
Lord Burleigh ; * and he improved upon it. 

" And a great deal more if he had shook his 
head as I taught him." * — Laughed heartily. 

Lord Nugent ^ — clever ! You would not have 
thought him so, had you known him. Old 



1 I have not found the expression in Steele. But the two 
following lines are in Churchill, which are very similar to 
Sheridan's words : — 

" Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known, 
Defacing first, then claiming for his own." 

Ajjoloffy addressed to Criiical Reviewers. 

2 "He a wit! Hang him; he's only an adopter of strag- 
gling jests and fatherless lampoons; by the credit of which 
he eats at good tables, and so, like the barren beggar-woman, 
lives by borrowed children." — Wycherleif s Plain Dealer^ Act 
11. Sc. 1. 

8 The Historical Register for 1736, Act i. 

4 The Critic, Act in. Sc. 1. 

5 Robert Craggs, Viscount Nugent; an Irish peer and 
Member of the English House of Commons. Died 1788. 



84 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

" Remote from Liberty and Truth," ^ as Burke 
used to call him. 

Epilogue to Semiramis charming. 

" It is our opinion," &c. in the Morning 
Chronicle — Laughed heartily — Nothing di- 
verts me more than their opinion — the tone of 
the Papers ! 

Could conceive no good of James the Second. 
His seeing Monmouth, if he intended his death, 
a beastly thing. 

L'Homme au Masque de Fer, was Lewis's 
brother. 

Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews read by Mr. 
Trotter to them on the road to Paris. St. John 
and Fox could not make themselves heard on the 
pavement. 

Comte de Grammont ^ delightful. Scene at 
Turin — Visit in disguise — Fleur d'epine ^ de- 
lightful. 

Duke of Northumberland visited by a tiger, 
when in the gout at Northumberland House — 
have heard him tell the story. 

1 A short ode by Lord Nugent " to William Pulteney, 
Esq." commences with the words " Remote from Liberty 
and Truth." See his published works. 

2 By Count Antoiue d' Hamilton. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 85 

Proposed to go on Saturday — Not before 
Monday at least — We shall have company to- 
morrow — ' let us have a quiet day before we 
part. 

Prior's Alma a great favorite — quoted many 
lines. — Hamilton's Bawn.^ 

Some verses of mine made when a boy, said 
by Tickell to be borrowed from his grandfather, 
whom I had never read. Borrowed by both of 
us from Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.^ 

Warburton's Divine Legation — had never 
read him — and only upon the sixth ^neid.^ 
Gibbon's Answer* by no means conclusive. 

Plutarch — one circumstance prevents my 
\ 

1 " The grand question debated whether Hamilton's Bawn 
should be turned into a barrack or a malthouse." — A Hu- 
morous Poem by Swift. 

2 " Then grasp'd the hand he held, and sigh'd his soul 

away." — Palamon and Arcite. 
" ' Kenna, farewell! ' and sigh'd his soal away." 

TtckeWs Kens. Garden. 
" Eose on her couch, and gazed her soul away." 

Pleas. Memory, part 1. 

3 Warburton's Dissertation on the 6th JEneid in his Divine 
Legation of Moses, Booh ii. Sect. 4. V 

4 Critical Observations on the design of the 6th Book of 
the iEneid. — Gibbon's Miscel. Works, ii. 497. 



86 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

taking any pleasure in his lives — my disbelief 
of everything he says — Plutarch's credulity 
incredible. 

Sully tells a story of a Ghost, as not disbeliev- 
ing it.-^ 

Juvenal a good writer. Wish he was less dif- 
ficult. 

Gibbon's account of Christianity in his History 
full of admirable irony. 

Dryden's defence of transubstantiation, the best 
passage in perhaps the first poem ^ in the world. 

One good trait in him : never but once insolent 
to fallen greatness. 

His Lady and Leaf — an almost faultless poem. 

Cannot read Black Letter — could never make 
anything of an act of Parliament. 

Lowth's answer to Warburton contains some 
good things ^ — Warburton a clever fellow. 

Johnson felt little respect for short poems. 

Boswell I believe to be full of veracity. 

Did anybody in our time remember Johnson 

1 iNIemoires de Sully, liv. x. 

2 Dryden's Hind and Panther. Vide supra, p. 59. 

8 Lowth's " Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester " on Bishop 
Warburton's " Appendix concerning the Book of Job." See 
Divine Legation, &c. edition of 1765. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 87 

in early life before his celebrity ? How did he 
behave then ? 

Mrs. Carter very heavy in conversation. 

Bishop Shipley a very good writer. 

Sir William Jones drew from a very ample 
fund. 

I do not like geese upon a Common ; they 
make a bad soil ; nor do I like a Common too 
near me. 

Was a famous trap-ball player — beat some 
Etonians two or three years ago. 

Bonaparte a spoiled child. Berthier, who was 
much with him, said that when out rabbit shoot- 
ing, if he missed, and they hit, he did not like it, 
and grew very cross. 

If an Austrian War takes place, it will be over 
with Austria, or the war will last many years. 

Czar Peter's dreadful punishment of drawing 
under the keel. 

Water and all White Wines improved by ice. 

Sir Charles Grandison an ^neas-kind of char- 
acter. • 

Preferred his Trajan to Townley's. 

Rocks of Meillerie very beautiful. 

Killarney Lake beyond anything of the kind 
he ever saw. 



88 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Bond Street bad, and inferior to wliat the 
Strand used to be, which has suffered in its shops 
from Bond Street, — Piccadilly on a bright Sunday 
very fine. Could never believe the streets of Lon- 
don were so short as they are — particularly Bond 
Street, which is said to be only half a mile long. 

Thought Gibbon's acacia walk long ; ^ and it 
was short. 

Knew La Fayette in England. 

Never liked Ranelagh, though one should not, 
they say, speak ill of the dead.^ 

Alliteration ; I believe it is peculiar to the 
English, if we except that ridiculous one of 
Cicero.^ 

Preferred the Spanish Pi'overb to any — " The 

1 The acacia walk in Gibbon's garden at Lausanne, so 
touchingly connected with his reflections on the completion 
of his History of the Decline and Fall. — Mhcd. Works, 
I. 170. 

2 Ranelagh was discontinued in 1802. 

3 Probably Mr. Fox alludes to the lines quoted by Quin- 
tilian, b. ix. c. 4, as written by Cicero: " fortunatam 
natam me consule Romam;" though this is not exactly 
what is now understood by an alliteration. There is an- 
other, also quoted from Cicero by Quintilian, b. xi. c. 1, 
which more nearly approaches the modern meaning of the 
word: " Cedant arma togse, concedant laurea linguse." 
Which of these two did he consider ridiculous ? 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 89 

biter bit " — how inferior to " He went out to 
gather wool, and comes home shorn," — quoting 
the Spanish. 

That a man is young at forty, I always main- 
tain. 

Voltaire's works. I often look at them on the 
shelf, and wonder they are really an object for 
contemplation ! Voltaire repeats himself very 
often of course, or it could not be. 

The Way of the World,^ a charming comedy. 

The Mourning Bride,^ execrable everywhere. 

Pizarro,^ the worst thing possible. 

When he said he carved ill, and she confirmed 
it — " Yes, my dear, I thought you would agree 
with me." 

Speaking of the new room projecting ^ — " Then 
you'll be always in the new drawing-room — you'll 
never play again where I am — never more in 
the poor back room." 

Homer almost always speaks well of women, 
except in the instance of Penelope's maids, whom 
he uses rather hardly.* 

1 By Congreve. 

2 By E. B. Sheridan — a translation from tlie German. 
8 At St. Anne's Hill. 

4 Odyssey, Book xx. 8, et seq. xxii. 424, et scq. &c. 



90 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Like Telemachus in Helen's speech in the 
Odyssey ^ — remarked by Lord Grenville. 

Nausicaa exquisite^ — better than anything. 

Read nine Epic Poems aloud to Mrs. Fox, in 
one winter, (if I could call Lucretius one, which 
it is not ;) Iliad, Odyssey, Apollonius Rhodius, 
Eneid, Tasso, Ariosto, Milton's Paradise Lost, 
and Regained, Fairy Queen. Two of them far 
the most entertaining to read, whatever may be 
their other merits — The Odyssey, and Tiie Or- 
lando Furioso. 

Like a book of Spencer exceedingly, before 
something else. 

Epistle to Lord Oxford — Parnell's. 

Songs— Fairy Tale— Elegy — "Lowly Bed"* 

— " Here lies Gay." 

Have often thought that if I had a great deal 
of leisure, I would publish an edition of Dryden 

— with the originals on the opposite page to the 
Translations. 

Nothing so absurd as not to give Chaucer with 
the Translations. 

1 Book IV. 138, et seq. * Odyssey, Book vi. 

8 " The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

Grat/s Elet/y in a Country Churchyard. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 91 

Nothing more absurd than Malone's crowding 
his prefaces together. 

Broke from a Criticism on Porson's Euripides, 
to look for the httle pigs. 

Pi'eferred Barry's Romeo to Garrick's. 

Garrick's Othello reminded Quin of a little 
black boy with a teakettle ; and I always looked 
for the teakettle. 

Darwin recommended cold bathing for a cold 
— Coke the worse for it — try again, said Dar- 
win. 

When Mackintosh reflected on O'Quigley what 
was the reply of Parr ? " He was an Irishman, 
and he might have been a Scotchman — He was 
a Priest, and he might have been a Lawyer — 
He was a Rebel, and he might have been an 
Apostate." 

Wasn't it enough to make one cry when the 
air was so thick last week ? 

Fitz's " Body and SouL" •■■ 

It is always said, " Spend your money while you 
can enjoy it " — Now, I always thought money of 
most use in old age, and it is rather hard upon me 
that I should want it now. 

1 The Soul and the Body, a Dialogue in vei'se, by General 
Fitzpatrick. 



92 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Could never forgive Addington for suffering 
himself to be drawn into the war. 

Abroad and barely nineteen, when chosen into 
Parliament in 1768. 

Bonaparte, during the peace, I am persuaded, 
would gladly have consented to fix his dominions 
as they were. 

Plutarch's lives a most exciting work for a 
young man who is at all ambitious. With his 
other works I am unacquainted. All the extracts 
I have seen are good. 

I can excuse almost everything in Elizabeth 
but the execution of Mary — Except William the 
Third she was the best of them — We have not 
had a good set. 

William had great simplicity of character ; and 
what is remarkable, the more you know of him 
the more you like him — his letters are a proof of 
this. He did nothing perhaps to blame, but in 
the affair of the massacre of Glencoe ; and then 
not in the thing itself, for he knew nothing of it, 
but in pushing too far the maxim, to protect those 
who only exceed your orders. 

I often think that if Elizabeth had invited 
Philip the Second, and had got him over here 
and clapped him into prison on some pretence of 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 93 

treason oi' some such thing, it would have saved 
her a great deal of trouble. 

Gray's stanza, " Thee the song, the dance 
obey," -^ certainly suggested by the ballet at Paris 
— and " Slow melting strains," ^ &c. — refer to 
the chaconne, and tlie appearance of the principal 
dancer — Never liked the last line — neither 
" bloom " nor " purple." ^ 

The Odes to Spring and to Adversity his 
favorites — the first perhaps without faults — but 
after all, he liked best the Elegy, which is full of 
faults — the first stanza very bad, " to darkness 
and to me." 

Nothing like the former fashion of high car- 
riages to suit only the young and the active, who 
least wanted to get into them. 

William the Third justified in hating the French, 
and perhaps in making England an instrument of 
his hatred ; but certainly England herself had 
cause for war. 



1 Progress of Poesy, 3d stanza. 2 ibjd, 

3 " The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of 
Love." — Ihid. Instead of "neither bloom nor purple," 
another MS. copy of the Recollections has the words, " Nor 
the pride, nor ample pinion." These latter words are in the 
last stanza of the same ode. 



94 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Hume the most partial of all writers ; 25<ii'ticu- 
larly through the whole of the reign of Charles 
the First. 

Waller's speech preserved, and good too.^ 

Lord Strafford's speech on his trial capital.^ 

No dark ages — Hildebrand's as dark as any, 
yet his rvriting is good. 

Eloisa's letters, what good Latin ! 

Menander's works the greatest loss. 

Whenever I hated chess, it was like a lover. 

Soame Jenyns's style excellent. 

Never read Jortin's Erasmus. 

Turkish and Persian tales authentic. 

Euripides perhaps the most precious thing left 
us — most like Shakspeare.^ 

The Colon aius perhaps the best of Sophocles, 
though I like the Electra too. The Greek chorus 
the prettiest thing in the world. 

Caesar's Commentaries do not entertain me 



1 Two speeches of Edmund Waller's are in Pari. Hist. 
— his speech in Commons, April 22, 1640, on moving to 
consider Redress of Grievances before granting Supply; 
and his speech in Long Parliament, June 11, 1641, against 
abolishing the Bishops. — Par/. Hist. II. 555, 826. 

2 Howell's State Trials, in. 1462, et seq. 
8 Vide supra, pp. 55 and 64. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 95 

somehow. There is a want of thought in them — 
dry, and affecting to be written briefly and in a 
hurry — Came here ; went there. His letter to 
Oppius and Cornelius Balbus ^ the most striking 
thing to his honor, and seldom mentioned. Had 
sent for a Cicero and copied it out to transmit it 
to Bonaparte, when the news of D'Enghien's 
death ^ arrived and prevented him. 

All serves to convince me that women must 
have a great influence in Society, do Avhat you 
will. 

Mr. Ogilvie a chess player of another form. 

Hooke, like Hume, was determined to blacken 
one side — Hooke did it clumsily, Hume dexter- 
ously. 

1 Ad Attic, rx. 7. Hooke, iv. 39. S. R. [The letter 
from Casar to Oppius and Cornelius Balbus was sent by 
Cicero to Atticus, (inclosed in the 7tli Epistle of 9tli Book 
of Letters to Atticus,) to show Ctesar's moderation in the 
midst of great successes. It affords " a noble testimony to 
Ccesar's wisdom and magnanimity."] 

2 The Duke d'Enghien was shot, by the order of Bonaparte, 
in the Chateau of Vincennes, in March, 1804, having been 
treacherously seized in Baden, by French troops, sent across 
the Ehine to kidnap him. This act, a breach of tlie law of 
nations, excited the indignation of Europe, and no doubt 
changed Sir. Fox's sentiments towards Bonaparte, whose 
guest he had been at Paris but a few months before. 



96 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Boccaccio — preface to his third or fourth book 
in favor of love for women, by far the warmest 
piece of eloquence I ever read — Dryden imitates 
it in his introduction to Cymon and Iphigenia — 
" Old as I am, for ladies' love uniit." 

Peti'arch's Latin letters the best of him. 

Dined with Abbe Sieyes ^ — has a very pretty 
place — a very good dinner — good wines — he 
talked a good deal, and very well — a very pleas- 
ant day — near Marly. 

Saw Moreau once — saw Massena — never 
saw Carnot. 

Saw Voltaire at Ferney — but long ago ; he 
lived in great elegance there. 

Never saw Rousseau or Condorcet. 

Bonaparte very handsome, and more like Lord 
Villiers than anybody in England — though cer- 
tainly not so handsome. The smiles that played 
about his mouth when he spoke, delightful. 

Have not seen the hills this fortnight. When 
in the evening it suddenly cleared — " How d'ye 
do ? " he cried, laughing. 

Thought of his game of chess in the night. 
Does not play slow, but talks and reasons a good 

1 ]\Iember of the States General in 1789. See mention of 
him below by Talleyrand. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 97 

deal while playing. Played eight games with 
me and won five. 

At Bologna dreamt that Lord Holland, then a 
boy at school, was dead, and that the letters con- 
taining the news were lying on the table before 
him. In the morning Jenkins (the banker at 
Rome) arrived from Turin, and introduced him- 
self, saying, " My Lord, I am sorry to inform 
your Lordship that you are now Lord Holland." 
In the course of the day two English gentlemen 
arrived from Geneva, who said that the news 
had reached Geneva, and that an express was on 
the road for him from England. At night the 
express arrived. James Hare (Junior) went out 
to the express, and returned saying, " All is 
right." ^ It came on account of the King's illness ; 
and there were letters from Lord Holland. The 
express said that he had heard the report in 
England, but that it was not true. 

Said to himself, on one occasion, that he was 
sure he was wrong, he had been so positive. 



1 " Mrs. Fox has often told me, (and I think he once did 
himself,) that when they heard James Hare's step returning, 
he remarked, ' it must be good by the way he comes up- 
stairs.' " — Miss Fox to S. R. 
7 



98 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

April, 1806. 

Called upon him in Stable Yard,^ when ill. 
Hippocrates lay open before him. 

When I said, speaking of the east wind, I 
wish the new Administration would get it put 
down by Act of Parliament, he smiled, and said, 
(waking as it were, out of one of his fits of tor- 
por,) " They would find that a difficult thing, — 
but I believe they would do as much good in 
that, as they will in anything else." 



ANECDOTES OF FOX BY VARIOUS PERSONS 

FROM COMMONPLACE-BOOK OP 

SAMUEL ROGERS. 

Burke was exceedingly struck with Sheridan's 
speeches in Westminster Hall. He told Fox 
that he thought Sheridan had hit upon a middle 
style, between Prose and Poetry, which was very 
happy ; and Fox used to say that he thought 
Burke's taste in composition fell off from that 

1 Mr. Fox, on being appointed Foreign Secretary in Feb. 
1806, had removed into a house in Stable Yard in St. James's 
Palace. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 99 

time. Fox always thought httle of the celebrated 
" Reflections," and considered the writing of that 
work to be in a very bad taste. — Fitzpatrick. 

Fox in the progress of his work -^ thought but 
little of verbal criticisms. Uvedale Price made 
many, and Fox threw them into the fire. They 
were not such as he wanted. — Fitzpatrick. 

Mackintosh was considered by Fox as having 
deserted the party, and at one period of his life 
he resented such conduct very deeply, but that 
time was past with him. Before he left England, 
and after Mackintosh's dereliction, they met at 
dinner somewhere, and Mackintosh, introducing 
the subject of the history, made an offer of assist- 
ance, with regai'd to inquiinng after documents, 
which offer Fox accepted very cordially, and he 
would not have done it, if that feeling had been 
very strong in him. — Fitzpatrick at Foxley, 
August, 1808. 

When a bitter wind in March blew from the 
West, and after a time the weathercock shifted 
to the East — " Yes," he would say, laughing, " I 

1 History of the Reign of James II. 

LOFC. 



100 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

knew it would own itself East at last." — Lord 
Holland. 

Mr. Fox was once sitting in conversation with 
Mr. Burke and the Duke of Richmond, when a 
discussion took place on the comparative mei'its 
of History, Philosophy, and Poetry. The Duke 
of Richmond declared for the first two; saying 
that he was for truth ; that he preferred truth to 
everything; upon which Mr. Burke observed 
that there was no truth but in Poetry. My 
uncle was of the same opinion, and would often 
say afterwards that he should wi-ite a dialogue 
on the subject. — Lord Holland. 

I am, as he said of himself, a very painstak- 
ing man. When he first entered into office, being 
dissatisfied with his handwriting, he took lessons ; 
and for some time, when carving, he had a book 
on the subject open by him. — Lord Holland. 

If I recover, young one, I will never take an 
efficient office again ;' though I should like to be 
useful. I will never be so foolish as to take a 
peerage ; a thing I have often refused. — Lord 
Holland. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX, 101 

My uncle was humorous on sad occasions. 
When helping him into bed a night or two before 
he died, I said, " O passi graviora : dabit Deus 
his quoque finem ; " — he replied, " Aye, young 
one — but jinem is an awkward word in more 
senses than one." — Lord Holland. 



Glorious was his course; 
And long the track of light he left behind him. 



EDMUND BURKE 



EDMUND BUEKE. 



MEMORANDA MADE BY MRS. CREWE.* 






^^(?3 N this age moi'e respect is shown to 
i^^H talent than to wisdom — but I consid- 
f^^l er our forefathers as deeper thinkers 



-^^'^^ than ourselves, because they set an 
higher value on good sense than knowledge in 
various sciences ; and their good sense was de- 
rived very often from as much study and more 
knowledge, though of another sort ! 

Somebody, who had met Mr. Fox abroad, 
mentioned his early attachment to France and 
French manners. Yes, said Mr. B., his attach- 
ment has been great, and long, and like a cat. 



1 The wife of John Crewe, Esq. created Lord Crewe in 
1806. It was to this lady that Sheridan addressed the lines 
entitled " A Portrait," prefixed to his comedy of the School 
for Scandal. 



106 EDMUND BURKE. 

he has continued faithful to the house, after the 
family has left it. 

Lord Cluitham was a great Minister, and bold 
in his undertakings. He inspired the people 
with warlike ardor when it was necessary. He 
considered Mobs in the light of a raw material, 
which might be manufactured to a proper stuff 
for their own happiness in the end. 

Dull Prosers are preferable to dull Jokers. 
The first require only patience ; but the last har- 
ass the spirits, and check their spontaneous ac- 
tion. 

Quizzing a system of terror — the ruin of all 
social intercourse. 

More indulgence should be shown to Story- 
tellers. A story to be good, should be a little 
long sometimes ; and in general, when a man 
offers you his story, it is the best thing he has to 
give you. There should be a variety of styles, 
too, in conversation, as in other amusements. 

Emigrants. It is in human nature, as well as 
in brute nature, to dislike a fellow-creature in a 
state of degradation. Dogs will insult a dog 
with a canister at his tail, and when a boy, I 
have often played with other boys at a trick to 
cover one turkey with mud, that we might ob- 



EDMUND BURKE. 107 

serve how other turkeys would tease it. Com- 
passion, like every other feeling, may be worn 

r 

out. He had a great indulgence for the preju- 
dices which were against the Emigrants. 

A great admirer of Swift's humor, particu- 
larly in his namby-pamby letters to Stella, which 
he always praised for their genuine gracefulness 
and ease. It being observed that many could 
not relish them in early life, but had grown to 
like them afterwards, he said : In early life, we 
have generally a serious turn. It is in youth 
that the reasoning powers are strongest, though 
the stock is then too small to make any show 
with. The imagination becomes strongest after 
youth ; for however ready it is to come forward, 
it cannot be exercised without a stock of knowl- 
edge. 

England is, at all times, a moon shone upon 
by France. France contains all within herself. 
She has natural advantages ; she can rise soon 
after severe blows. England is an artificial 
country. Take away her Commerce, what has 
she? 

Education should be considered as improving 
the heart, as well as the head. Too often men- 
tioned merely as a school-acquirement. The last 



108 EDMUND BURKE. 

may be bought by any rich vulgar parent — the 
first can only be imbibed from domestic guar- 
dians, who have themselves a thoi'ough and re- 
fined sense of true virtue ! ^ 

All colors are blended well by gold. Gold is 
the color of light, and produces the effect of sun- 
shine — our very language confesses the pleasure 
we derive from gilded objects. Many years ago 
Mr. Fox lamented with me the loss of true taste 
in England on this point. Gilding was so much 
the taste of the Ancients, that they gilded their 
favorite statues ; and remains of it are seen on 
the Venus de Medici. She was sometimes styled 
Aurea Venus on this account. The Romans 
gilded their walls and ceilings more than the 
Greeks, because they had more gold. 

Disliked the cant concerning the Pooi'. The 
Poor are not poor, but Men, as we are all born 
to be. Those who have known luxury and are 
reduced, meet with most of my compassion ! 
Fox was of the same mind. Tooke of another. 
" The rich are born with a right to my labor. 

1 What a reflection on the practice of the upper class ! 
S. B. 



EDMUND BURKE. 109 

If I make a tract of ground produce a hun- 
dred fold, there are others to claim the ninety- 
nine." 

Good humor too often confounded with good 
nature, which has a much less servile character. 

Every farm held by a gentleman, is, in pro- 
portion to its magnitude, a loss. No gentleman 
can give his time and attention to such details as 
are necessary to minute economy, and which no 
farm can prosper without. 



ANECDOTES OP BURKE BY DR. LAWRENCE,^ 

FROM COMMONPLACE-BOOK OF 

SAMUEL ROGERS. 

Burke sleeps but ill, and often rises at day- 
break ; makes the tour of his farm, oversees his 
men at work, and then returns to bed. Walks 
in his fields with a spud in his hand, making 
war upon the nettles, and breaking the clods ; 
and often makes a stop in conversation on the 

1 Dr. French Lavn-ence, M. P. from about 1797 to 1808 
or 1809, and a frequent supporter of Mr. Fox. He was an 
intimate friend of Mr. Burke. 



110 EDMUND BURKE. 

grandest topic, to dii'ect the lading of a dung 
cart. 

1 have known him read Savary's Travels ^ to 
the ladies in the morning, and compare it with 
Strabo at night. 

After dinner he retires to a nap, but returns to 
tea, and when the card-table is set, retires again 
for three, four, or five hours. 

In argument puts out his whole strength, but is 
ready to listen, and full of inquiry. 

Dined with him and others at the Ton, Bil- 
lingsgate. At dinner time he was missed ; and 
was found at a fishmonger's, learning the history 
of pickled salmon. 

In December, 1794, Windham paid him a 
visit, and one day after dinner he said, " I have 
" had a terrible morning. I have been cutting 
" down some trees in the home-wood, and I was 
" there last with my son ^ to mark them. This 
" elm, I said to him, must make way for that old 

i Savary's Letters on Egypt and on Greece. Circa 1785 
and 1786. ? 

2 Mr. Burke's only son, who had succeeded to the repre- 
sentation in Parliament of the borough of Malton, on his 
father retiring from it in 1794; died very shortly after- 
wards, in August, 1794. 



EDMUND BURKE. Ill 

" oak ; here we will open a walk, and there place 
" an Urn to your Uncle's memory." The recol- 
lection of it overcame him. 

He farms 500 acres himself, and sells his 
chickens and rabbits. 

In his youth he wrote and published a didactic 
poem. The Progress of Literature.^ 

Educated at a small school in Ireland, the mas- 
ter of which paid him an annual visit for many 
years at Beaconsfield.^ 

He dictates a good deal to an amanuensis, and 
corrects repeatedly afterwards, often printing and 
cancelling. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, being fond of the old 
style of gardening, interceded for a dipt hedge 
at Beaconsfield, which still stands. He loved to 
see the footsteps of man about a human habita- 
tion. 

Markham, Archbishop of York, had a corre- 
spondence with Burke concerning Junius. Mark- 

1 This poem was probably anonymous ; it does not appear 
in the ordinary editions of his works. 

2 Mr. Burke, in 1768, purchased a house and a small 
estate called Gregories, near Beaconsfield in Buckingham- 
shire, where he resided until his death in 1797, occupying 
himself much in farming and planting. 



112 EDMUND BURKE. 

ham ascribed it to Burke. Biu'ke replied that it 
could hardly be suspected that he should so far 
forget his interest, as well as his feelings, as to 
write in favor of Grenville, whom he had opposed, 
and write so coolly of his own party. Markham 
replied, that as he had not denied it, he should 
still believe it to be his ; and there the correspond- 
ence and the acquaintance ceased.^ 

Was cheerful on the day of his death. The 
papers of Addison were often read to him in his 
last illness, and on that day he heard No. 247 of 
The Si^ectator. The application of the lines of 
Ovid^ on a Woman's Tongue, he thought un- 
fair. 

He drank tea with Erskine at Hampstead, 
after he had left Parliament, and not long before 

1 Lawrence did not deny it neither, though he inclined 
against it. When I observed that the styles of Burke and 
Junius were different: the first vehement and flowing, — the 
last cold, sarcastic, close, and epigrammatic ; — he replied 
that Burke could change his style. — S. R. 25 Jan. 1797. 

2 The lines of Ovid (Met. vt. 556) " tell us," (in Addison's 
words,) " that when the tongue of a beautiful female was cut 
" out, and thrown upon the ground, it could not forbear mut- 
" tei'ing even m that posture." — Sped. No. 247. 



EDMUND BURKE. 113 

his death.^ " Here," says he, " you are well 
placed. Here a Reform can do no harm. Wheth- 
er you plant nettles or roses, is of no importance. 
The world will not suffer by it." 

JErsMne. 

Thought the Mosaic account [of the creation] 
most probable — the creation of a man and a wom- 
an, full grown. How otherwise could mankind 
have been reared ? Francis. 

What will they think of the Public Speaking 
of this age in after-times, when they read Mr. 
Bui'ke's Speeches and are told that in his day he 
was not accounted either the -first or second 
speaker 1 ^ Sheridan. 

1 Mr. Burke retired from Parliament in 1794, and died 
July 8, 1797. 

2 Mr. Grattan remarks, that Mr. Burke's speeches were 
far better to read than to hear ; and that he was heard with- 
out much attention. — Infra, p. 124 and 133. 



HENRY GRATTAN. 




HENRY GRATTAN. 

At Tunbridge Wells, St. James's 
Place, and Fredley Farm.l 

TRAFFORD an unprincipled man, 

flattering his master to his ruin ; 

with no talent but eloquence. I 

rejoice in his fall when I read of it. 

It was right that Charles should die; he had 

made war on his people ; but the thing was ill 

done. He was put to death by a party, and not 

by a power emanating from the people. 

Old men love society. Hope is the food of 
solitude ; and young men like to be alone. 

Historians are not contented with telling us 
what was done, but they pretend to enter into the 
secret motives of men. 

Windham — never dignified in his eloquence, 
never pathetic. He despised the people, and 
talked up the aristocracy. 

Tierney — a very powerful speaker, clear and 

1 The house of Mr. Richard Sharp, near Dorking. 



118 HENRY GRATTAN. 

close in his reasoning, concise and simple in his 
language. Canning fears him more than he fears 
any one. 

Pitt could not have much knowledge. His 
father had but little. Burke used to say of 
Lord Chatham, " His forte was fancy, and his 
feeble was ignorance." Pitt has ruined his 
country. 

Grattan entering a cottage with his hat in his 
hand. " Sir, your most obedient — Now, Sir, 
how much may you earn in a week ? You eat 
little or no meat, I suppose." — Anxious to con- 
fute Forster, who had said that the cottagers 
about Tunbridge lived worse than those of Ire- 
land. 

Like Louis XIV. he returns the bow of a child. 

Repeated Pope's lines to Lord Oxford with 
great enthusiasm. They required courage in 
Pope.-' 

1 Epistle (in verse) to Robert, Earl of Oxford and Morti- 
mer, prefixed to Parnell's Poems, published, by Pope in 
1721. It was sent by Pope to the Earl on 21 October, 
1721, after his release from imprisonment in the Tower, 
where he had been confined on a charge of high treason. 
— Note by Pojje. 



HENRY GRATTAN. 119 

Dryden was deficient in pathos and grandeur ; 
but in weighing tlieir comparative merits, is noth- 
ing to be ascribed to a virtuous and dignified 
feeling ? Dryden in some respects a greater 
poet than Pope, but Pope was a moral man. 

Reasoned on the creation and government of 
the world. [It is a singular inference to make 
that because this vvoi'ld is imperfect, he who 
made it has made a better.] 

Swift was on the wrong side in England ; but 
in Ireland he was a Giant. 

Gulliver's Travels amusing ; but is there much 
to be learned from them ? 

Were you twenty years old, and Captain Cook 
setting sail, would you go round the world with 
him ? No, I have no wish to see such countries 
as he saw. I wish to see Rome and Athens, and 
some parts of Asia ; but little besides. 

Johnson's Lives contain a fine body of crit- 
icism. 

Auger's translation of Demosthenes ^ admi- 
rable, and the best translation of any Author I 
know. 

Demosthenes on the Crown most excellent. 

1 ffiu\Tes Complettes de D^raosth^ne et d'Eschine, tra- 
duites en Frauvais par I'Abb^ Auger. Paris, 1777. 



120 nExnr gratta.y. 

Was shut up when a boy to rend Plutarch's 
Lives, and could not bear the confinement — used 
to read five pages, and doze away the rest of the 
time. Thinks now, however, that Brutus's life 
is veiy affecting towards the end. 

Would sooner be shot than ascend in a balloon. 

One of the reasons why the affliirs of Nations 
are not better conducted, is that the consequences 
of our misconduct are more remote, and less cer- 
tain, than any false step we may make in private 
life. A nation may be ruined, but not in our 
time ; nor will the causes that led to it be so ob- 
vious as to attach certainly to such or such a 
person. We may not live to see the tragedy, 
nor indeed may it ever take place. Our self- 
interest, in that respect, is therefore less awake, 
and so also are our consciences ; nor is our imagi- 
nation so excited by the prospect of evil to many 
as to one. Our self-interest, as individuals, which 
is generally short-sighted, counteracts the other 
too powerfully. 

The three most likely names for Junius's 
Letters are Gibbon, Hamilton,^ and Burke. I 

1 William Gerard Hamilton, knowm as " Single Speech 
Hamilton;" he died in 1796. He left a work, published 
after his death, culled " Parliamentary Logic." 



HENRY G RAT TAN. 121 

believe in Burke — Gibbon it could not be — 
Hamilton would have laid claim to it sooner or 
later — he wished for fame, and he left a book 
ill written — he would rather have acknowledged 
a book well written. 

Were I rich, and could I live as I please, I 
should have no wish for a fine house or fine fur- 
niture, (I would rather not have them, I should 
be afraid of hurting them,) or pictures — they give 
me no pleasure. I would have no fine gardens 
or conservatories — I love the fruit ; but I would 
have no fine gardener to criticize me, and tell me 
I was doing wrong, or walking awkwardly — I 
should love a wide expanse — I would have bands 
of music — I love music — I would have a car- 
riage for use, and fine horses, but not for riding 
— I love to go fast — I would cut the air. 

Wealth makes a man sad — he lives for others 
who don't care for him ; — he becomes a steward. 

My Uncle Dean Marlay ^ was famous for the 
best little dinners, and the best company in Dub- 

1 Dr. Richard Marlay, afterwards Bishop of Waterford; 
"a very amiable, benevolent, and ingenious man;" a mem- 
ber of the Literary Club; died in Dublin, July 2d, 1802, 
in his 75th year. — Mahne's Notes to Boswells Jvhnson. See 
also Grallan's Life, by his Son. 



122 HENRY G RATTAN. 

lin — but M'hen made a Bishop he enlarged his 
table, and he lost his fame — he had no more 
good company — and there was an end of his en- 
joyment. He had at first about four hundi-ed 
pounds a year, and his little dinners were delight- 
ful ; but he had an estate left him, and afterwards 
came to a Bishopric — he had Lords and Ladies to 
his table — people of fashion — foolish men and fool- 
ish women, and there was an end of him and of us. 

He [MarlayJ had much of the humor of Dean 
Swift. Upon one occasion when the footman 
was out of the way, he ordered the coachman 
to fetch some water from the well. The coach- 
man objected, saying that " It was his business 
to drive, and not run on errands." " Then bring 
the coach and four," said he, " and put the pitch- 
er into it, and drive to the well : " — a service 
which was performed many times to the great 
entertainment of the village. 

I cannot bear large and mixed companies ; 
they make me miserable.^ 

Burke at Beaconsfield^ never failed — he was 

1 Mrs. G. complains that he ought to bear his share in 
them; but he won't; he has no voice for them. S. R. 

2 Mr. Burke's seat near Beaconsfield. — Supra, p. Ill, 
note. 



HENRY GRATTAN. 123 

always in flow — his taste was good — though 
he loved Ovid. He loved farming and planting. 

Lord Bolingbroke a very fine speaker, and 
therefore banished the House.^ His Dedication 
to his Dissertations on Parties, a very fine imita- 
tion of that to " Killing no Murder." 

A fine prospect to the visitor or traveller is 
ever delightful — but possession destroys the 
pleasure. If I delighted much in a view or a 
spot, I would wish some other person to live 
there. 

What is a Ghost ? A dead man alive ? If 
immaterial, it can be no object of sight. 

Were a man to be offered life, with a foresight 
of all the evils that attend it, would he not re- 
ject it ? 

Pitt's faults might arise in some degree from 
his situation. For twenty years he was an apol- 
ogist for failure, and an iraposer of taxes : in 
other woi'ds a humbujr. 



1 When Lord Bolingbroke, who had been attainted by- 
act of Parliament for high treason, was pardoned in 1723, 
he was unable to procure a reversal of the attainder, and 
a restoration of his seat in the House of Lords. Mr. Grat- 
tan, no doubt, alludes to this when he says he was banished 
the House. 



124 HENRY G RAT TAN. 

Standing under the limes — " Now what are 
" these Senators about ? A great bumblebee 
" is now addressing them — they are now in a 
" Committee." It was June, and the limes were 
full of bees. He used to say in a morning, 
" Shall we visit those Senators ? " -^ 

Burke's speeches far better to read than to 
hear. They are better suited to a patient reader, 
than to an impatient hearer.^ 

Cicero better to read than to hear ; particularly 
in his speech against Milo,^ perhaps his finest 
to read, though very tedious to hear. The best 
speaker is to be found among the most enlight- 
ened people. Cicero would not have pleased at 
Athens. 

1 Mr. Rogers has introduced this subject, and that on the 
following page, into his poem of Human Life: — 

" A Walk in Spring — Gkattan, like those with thee 
By the heath-side (who had not envied me?) 
When the sweet limes, so full of bees in June, 
Led us to meet beneath their boughs at noon ; 
And thou didst say which of the Great and Wise, 
Could they but hear, and at thy bidding rise, 
Thou wouldst call up and question." 

2 See Sheridan's remark on Burke's speeches. — Supra, 
p. 113. 

8 Probably a mistake for Cicero's Oration " Pro T. Annio 
Milone." I do not find any oration against Milo in Cicero. 



HENRY GRATTAN. 125 

A woman in a red cloak passed us with her 
chattels on her back — " That woman is to be 
" envied. She has nothing to lose, and every- 
" thing to gain — She has therefore hope — no 
"thoughts of invasion — none of taxes." 

Fox had no curiosa felicitas in expression, 
though much of it in his arrangement. He 
would never have written " simplex munditiis." ^ 

He seems not to have admired Fox's speaking 
towards the last ; thinking that he fell off as his 
infirmities gained ground upon him. 

[Poetry transfused into prose, no plagiarism — 
difficult to give it a prose flow, and to melt it into 
the sentence.] 

Raphael and Adam ; their interview in Para- 
dise Lost, a model of high breeding.^ 

Liked Spa, where all the great people in 
Europe met in dishabille. 

Which would you rather pass a day with, 
Alexander, Caesar, or Bonaparte ? Caesar, as I 
am much interested about his time. I would ask 
him, (and here he enumerated many questions 
about his campaigns,) what were the real char- 
acters of many of his contemporaries — and I 

1 Horat. Od. Lib. i. 5. 2 Paradise Lost, Book v. 



126 HENRY GRATTAN. 

would ask him, but I would not press the ques- 
tion, (he might answer it or not as he pleased,) 
what part he took in the Catiline conspiracy. 

In travelling, I should like the lower oi'ders of 
the people better than the middle ones, for my 
companions — I would rather be in a heavy coach 
than in one that carried four. 

Of all men, if I could call up one, it should 
be Scipio Africanus. Hannibal was perhaps a 
greater Captain, but not so great and good a man. 
Epaminondas did not do so much. Themistocles 
was a rogue. 

Modern times have not furnished such men. 
It required the competition in little states. 

In modern times, Washington, I believe, was 
the greatest man, and next to him, William the 
Third. 

Came to the ruins of a cottage — Hinted at 
untold crimes committed there — the skeleton of 
a man. " Yes," says he, entering into the joke, 
" but the most extraordinary thing of all was the 
" situation of the woman." 

Talked again of the disadvantages of posses- 
sion. 

Decorated himself with lime blossoms, and 



EENRX G RAT TAN. 127 

stood again under the lime-trees. Found a 
winged ant carrying a caterpillar. 

Would you wish to call up Cleopatra ? Not 
much — her beauty would make me sad, and she 
would tell me nothing but lies. 

Priam very well bi'ed, particularly towards 
Helen. 

Hume right in saying, that not a page in 
Shakspeare was without glaring faults.^ In 
Othello he seems to have indulged in an East- 
ern style of speaking. 

I think Pitt right in saying, if he did so, that 
he would rather possess the speeches of Boling- 
broke than the lost Decades of Livy.^ I confess, 
however, I attempted to read the Patriot King,^ 
about three years ago; and I could not get on. 
It tired me. The style was excellent ; but I 
could not give my attention to the book. 

Sheridan's faults, like those of most men of 

1 See Hume's character of Shakspeare in Appendix to 
Reign of James I. 

2 Lord Grenville told Mr. Rogers that he did not think Mr. 
Pitt admired Bolingbroke much. — See Recollections of Lord 
Grenville, infra. 

8 " Letters ou the Spirit of Patriotism, and the Idea of a 
Patriot Kinp;," bv Lord Bolingbroke. 



128 HENRY GRATTAN. 

genius ; which are ahnost all of a poetical char- 
acter — the excesses of the generous virtues. 

What a slavery is office — to be subject to the 
whims of those above you, and the persecutions 
of those beneath you — to dance attendance on 
the great — to be no longer your own master. — 
No, give me a cottage and a crust — plain fare 
and quiet, and small beer, and, he added, lower- 
ing his voice, and smiling with his usual archness, 
" Claret." 

Mrs. Anne Pitt, Lord Chatham's sister, a very 
superior woman. — She hated him, and they lived 
like dog and cat. She said he had never read 
but one book — The Fairy Queen. He could 
only get rid of her by leaving his house, and 
setting a bill upon it, " This house to let." 

Every sentence [of Fox] came rolling like a 
wave of the Atlantic, three thousand miles long. 

Burke was so fond of arbitrary power, he could 
not sleep upon his pillow, unless he thought the 
King had a right to take it from under him. 

Lord Chatham made his son read to him, a 
day or two before he died, the conclusion of 



HENRY GRATTAN. 129 

Pope's Homer, describing the death of Hector ; ^ 
and when he had done he said, " Read it again." 

Stella ^ used often to visit my aunt, and sleep 
with her in the same bed, and weep all night. 

She was not very handsome. Miss V ^ was 

handsome. 

There is now a state religion — not a Christian 
religion. 

Beauty is the best thing going. To Beauty 
we owe Poetry, to Poetry Civilization, to Civil- 
ization every art and science. 

Two artists have contributed not a little to the 
popularity of Charles the First, Vandyke and the 
Headsman. 

Milton I like best of them all.* He is much 
more poetical than Shakspeare ; and if any- 
body would be a public speaker, let him study 

1 Iliad, Book xxii. &c. 

2 Mrs. Johnson, whom Swift has celebrated under the 
name of Stella; and to whom he was privately married. 

8 Miss Vanhorarigh, whom Swift called Vanessa. 
4 How dififerent was Mr. Fox's opinion of Milton is seen 
supra, pp. 38, 47, 56, &c. 
9 



130 HENRY G RAT TAN. 

his prose and his poetry, — his prose is often an 
admirable model for the majestic style of speak- 
ing. 

To be a good shot is useful. It makes a brave 
man braver, a timid man half brave ; and all 
men are born cowards. But it makes a bad man 
worse than it found him — a bully. 

Who was the best speaker you ever heard ? 
Fox, during the American War — Fox in his 
best days ; about the year 1779. 

Using the word disloyalty in the sense it has 
been used in, makes the King the law. 

Lord Chatham. " I don't inquire from what 
" quarter the wind cometh, but whither it goeth ; 
" and if any measure that comes from the Kight 
" Honorable Gentleman tends to the Public Good, 
" my bark is ready." ^ — "I stand alone — I 
" stand like our first ancestor — naked, but not 
ashamed." ^ 



1 "On another occasion he [Lord Chatham] said, 'It is 
not for us to inquire whence tlie wind bloweth, but where it 
tendetli. If its gales are for tlie public advantage, although 
they come from the quarter of the noble lord, my bark is 
ready.' " — Grattari's Life and Times, by his Son, Ed. 1849, 
I. 237. 

2 "In his [Lord Chatham's] speech on the Stamp Act 



HENRY G RAT TAN. 131 

The finest passage in Cicero is his panegyric 
on Demosthenes.^ 

Lord Chatham, I think, delivered finer things 
than Demosthenes ; but he had a greater theatre, 
and men are made by circumstances. " Amer- 
" ica has resisted. I rejoice, my Lords." ^ 
This passage, I think, excels any in Demos- 
thenes. 

I was at Paris in 1771 — for three months — 
and delighted — though I made no acquaintance 
but with an Abbe, and a Swindler. I went 
with two other Templars to study in France, by 

[for America], being abandoned by his friends, he said, 
' My Lords, I rise lilie our primeval ancestor — naked but 
not ashamed.' " — Ibid. i. 234. 

1 See Cicero's " Brutus; " where he says of Demosthenes, 
" a doctis oratorum est princeps judicatus; " or perhaps his 
" De Oratore, Dialogi tres." 

2 The speech was not in the Lords, but in the Commons, 
on 14th Jan. 1766, in the debate on the Address to the 
throne; the sentence, part of which Mr. Grattan quoted, 
is thus reported : " The Gentleman tells us America is ob- 
stinate — America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice 
that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so 
dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be 
slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the 
rest." — Pari. Hist. xvi. 104. 



132 HENRY GRATTAN. 

Havre, taking Coke upon Littleton — but settled 
nowhere. 

Castle-building is a bad habit. It leads to 
disappointment. 

Solitude is bad. I have tried Tinnehinch ^ for 
twenty years. — It leads to melancholy — to a sort 
of madness — you think of your vexations, your 
age. — Society should always be in your power. 

An old man cannot enjoy solitude. He has 
learnt the secret — He has found out the rogueries 
of Fortune. Nor will reading supply the want. 
I would live in a house full of society, to which 
I might escape from myself. 

I was called the Spirit of the Dargle.^ I found 
out (he said, laughing) that a man's worst com- 
panion is himself. 

The King (Charles the First) had made war 
on the people — but the death of Strafford ^ was 
less to be justified. — Though a thief, a robber, he 
was no traitor. He had committed every crime 
but that for which he was condemned to die. 

Of what use is it ? (Lycidas), says Johnson.* 

1 Mr. Grattan's residence in the county of Wicklow. 

2 A glen, near Tinnehinch. 

3 Vide supra, on Strafford, p. 117. 

4 See Johnson's criticism of Lycidas, in his Life of 



HENRY GRATTAN. 133 

These things — they take the mind out of the 
dirt, as it were. 

The French poets I read with little pleasure ; 
and am glad when I have done. Boileau per- 
haps — but such is their homage to the great, we 
are the worse for them. 

A wife should be of a modest character. She 
should sing. 

Burke's best things: On the payment of the 
Nabob of Arcot's debts — Descent of Hyder Ally 
on the Carnatic.-^ He was heai'd without much 
attention. 

We should always have the appearance of 
narrative, not of description. 

O'Connor^ and his beggar-girl — her regi- 
mentals. 



Milton, where he speaks of it as without nature, and with- 
out truth; its diction as harsh, its numbers as unpleasing, 
and its form as disgusting. 

1 See his speech in the House of Commons in support of 
Mr. Fox's motion for papers on the subject of the Nabob 
of Arcot's debts, 28 Feb. 1785. 

2 Possibly Mr. Arthur O'Connor is here alluded to. 
Mr. Grattan was very intimate with him; and in April, 
1798, went from Tinnehinch to England to give evidence 
at Maidstone Ln favor of O'Connor, on the trial of the 
latter for high treason, when he was acquitted. — State 



134 HENRY GRATTAN. 

Dislikes the clergy and all humbugs. 

[His forte in conversation is sketching a char- 
acter, with a gentle voice, and many pauses ; but 
with a delicate irony, a great archness of look 
and manner ; beginning, as you would think, 
with something like praise, and ending with a 
roll of the person .and a turn of the head, in a 
coup de Patte. It is very delightful to see him 
with Miss Fox. The enjoyment she feels en- 
courages him. S. R.] 

Pitt would be right nineteen times for once 
that Fox would be right; but that once would 
be worth all the i-est. The heart is wiser than 
the schools. 

In conversation, said Plunket, he gave results ^ 
rather than processes, of reasoning. Every sen- 
tence was a treasure. 

When Dr. Lucas, a very unpopular man. 

Trials, vol. xxvii. But what is meant by " his beggar- 
girl, and her regimentals? " 

1 As I can say of all the eminent men I have known, 
and from them, generally speaking, I have learnt more 
than from books, what they said making a deeper impres- 
sion. S. R. 



HENRY GRATTAN. 135 

ventured on a speech in the Irish Parliament, 
and failed altogether, Grattan said, " He rose 
" without a friend, and sat down without an 
" enemy." 

Of he said : " He was a coward in the 

"field, and a bully in the street." 



KICHARD PORSON 




RICHARD PORSON. 



E is not more remarkable for his 
learning, than for acuteness and 
cori'ectness of thought. Through 
his whole life, whether in his 
morning or his evening hours, he has never 
been heard to utter a mean or licentious sen- 
timent. He came to town with nothing but 
his fellowship to support him ; ^ and that was 
soon to expire, in consequence of his refusal to 
enter the Church. A lay-fellowship fell vacant. 
He applied for it to Dr. Postlethwaite, the Mas- 
ter of Trinity ; but was civilly refused. Another 
offered itself, and again he applied by letter, but 
with the same success. The Master had again 
promised it to a young relation, whose fellowship 

1 He was a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, where 
he obtained a fellowship in 1781, and took the degree of 
M. A. m 1785, 



140 RICHARD PORSON. 

was not within three years of its expiration ; and 
"I now found myself a private gentleman, with 
no visible means of support, and with nothing 
but my animal spirits to feed and clothe me." 
Two thousand pounds had been expended on his 
education ; but he had now nothing. By his let- 
ters to Travis -^ he had eax'ned only thirty pounds. 
A copy was sold at Farmer's sale — he never 
ventured to ask the price it fetched, but often 
mentioned it with some degree of anxiety ; and 
observed that if it often passed under the ham- 
mer at a low rate, he should become the constant 
purchaser, and consign it to the fire. 

When Dr. Postlethwaite came to town, to 
attend the Westminster Examination, Porson 
called upon him. " I am come. Sir, to inform 
you that my fellowship will become vacant in a 
few weeks, in order that you may appoint my 
successor." " But, Mr. Porson, you do not 
mean to leave us?" "It is not I who leave 
you, but you who dismiss me. You have done 
me every injury in your power. But I am not 
come to complain or expostulate." " I did not 



1 Letters to Archdeacon Travis in answer to his defence 
of 1 John V. 7. 



RICHARD PORSON. 141 

know, Mr. Porson, you were so resolved." 
"You could not conceive, Sir, that I could 
have applied for a Lay-fellowship to the detri- 
ment of some more scrupulous man. if it had 
been my intention to take orders." 

In September, 1792, the Greek Professor- 
ship^ fell vacant, and Dr. Postlethwaite wrote 
to acquaint Porson with the circumstance. He 
returned the following answer : — 

Sir, — 
When I first received the favor of your letter, 
I must own that I felt rather vexation and 
chagrin, than hope and satisfaction. I had 
looked upon myself so completely in the light of 
an outcast fi-om Alma Mater, that I had made 
up my mind to have no further connection with 
the place. The prospect you held out to me 
gave me more uneasiness than pleasure. When 
I was younger than I now am, and my disposi- 
tion more sanguine than it is at present, I was 
in daily expectation of Mr. Cooke's resignation, 
and I flattered myself with the hope of succeed- 
ing to the honor he was going to quit. As hope 

1 Porson was elected Greek Professor at the University of 
Cambridore in 1793. 



142 RICHARD P ORSON. 

and ambition are great castle-builders, I had 
laid a scheme, partly, as I was willing to think, 
for the joint credit, partly for the mutual ad- 
vantage, of myself and the University. I had 
projected a plan of reading lectures, and I per- 
suaded myself that I should easily obtain a 
grace, permitting me to exact a certain sum from 
every person who attended. But seven years' 
waiting will tire out the most patient temper ; 
and all my ambition of this sort was long ago 
laid asleep. The sudden news of the vacant 
Professorship put me in mind of poor Jacob, 
who, having served seven years in hopes of be- 
ing rewarded with Rachel, awoke, and behold it 
was Leah. Such, Sir, I confess, were the first 
ideas that took possession of my mind. But 
after a little reflection, I resolved to refer a 
matter of this importance to my friends. This 
circumstance has caused the delay, for which I 
ought before now to have apologized. My 
friends unanimously exhorted me to embrace the 
good fortune, which they conceived to be within 
my grasp. Their advice, therefore, joined to 
the expectations I had entertained of doing some 
small good by my exertions in the employment, 
together with the pardonable vanity which the 



RICHARD P ORSON. 143 

honor annexed to the office inspired, deter- 
mined me ; and I was on the point of troubling 
yon, Sir, and the other Electors with notice of 
my intentions to profess myself a candidate, 
when an objection, which had escaped me in 
the hurry of my thoughts, now occurred to 
my recollection. 

The same reason which hindered me from 
keeping my fellowship by the method you oblig- 
ingly pointed out to me, would, I am greatly 
afraid, prevent me from being Greek Professor. 
Whatever concern this may give me for myself, it 
gives me none for the public. I trust there ai'e, 
at least, twenty or thirty in the University, 
equally able and willing to undertake the office, 
possessed of talents superior to mine, and all of 
a more complying conscience. This I speak 
upon the supposition, that the next Greek Pro- 
fessor will be compelled to read lectures ; but if 
the place remains a sinecure, the number of 
qualified persons will be greatly increased. And 
though it were even granted, that my industry 
and attention might possibly produce some bene- 
fit to the interests of learning and the credit of 
the University, that trifling gain would be as 
much exceeded by keeping the Professorship a 



144 RICHARD P ORSON. 

sinecure, and bestowing it on a sound believer, 
as temporal considerations are outweighed by 
spiritual. Having only a strong persuasion, not 
an absolute certainty, that such a subscription is 
required of the Professor Elect, if I am mis- 
taken, I hereby offer myself as a candidate ; 
but if I am right in my opinion, I shall beg of 
you to order my name to be erased from the 
boards, and I shall esteem it a favor conferred on, 
Sir, 
Your obliged humble Servant, 

R. PORSON. 

Essex Court, 

6 October, 1792.1 

Had I a carriage, and did I see a well-dressed 
person on the road, I would always invite him 
in, and learn of him what I could. 

Louis XIV. was the son of Anne of Austria by 
Cardinal Richelieu. The man in the iron mask 
was Anne's eldest son — I have no doubt of it. 

Thanked Heaven he could at any time go 
without a meal cheerfully — breakfast, dinner, 
or supper. 

1 This letter the writer put into my hands, unasked, and 
when I begged to keep it, he said I might take a copy of it; 
and I thought it was his wish that I should. S. K. 



RICHARD P ORSON. 145 

Two parties must consent to the publication of 
a book, the Public as well as the Author. 

Mr. Pitt conceives his sentences before he 
utters them. Mr. Fox throws himself into the 
middle of his, and leaves it to God Almighty to 
get him out again. 

When Prometheus made man, he had used 
up all the water in making other animals ; so he 
mingled his clay with tears. 

Porson would almost cry when he spoke of 
Euripides. " AVhy should I write from myself, 
while anything remains to be done to such a 
writer as Euripides ? " 

When repeating a generous action from an- 
tiquity, or describing a death like Phocion's, his 
eyes would fill and his voice falter. 

Of Mackintosh : He means to get Interest for 
his Principal. 

Of Sheridan : He is a promising fellow. 

All wit true reasoning. 

History of the Grand Hum in a 100 Volumes 
folio. 

I love an octavo ; the pages are soon read — 
the milestones occur frequently. 

If I had £3000 per ann., I would have a 
person constantly dressed, night and day, with 
10 



146 RICHARD P ORSON. 

fire and candle to attend upon me. (He is an 
uncertain sleeper.) 

I had lived long before I discovered that Wit 
was Truth. 

A conqueror at the Olympic Games applied 
to Pindar for an Ode — The poet required 
twenty guineas. — "I could buy a statue for the 
sum." " Then buy a statue." Again he ap- 
plied and consented to the poet's terms. The 
Ode begins thus : — Unlike a statue, which re- 
mains fixed forever to its pedestal, this Ode 
shall fly over Greece, every bark on the -35gean 
Sea, every carriage along its shores, shall trans- 
port it.^ 

Did he catch this mania of Burney ? ^ No, he 
has it in the natural way^ I believe. 

1 must confess to have a very strong prejudice 
against all German original Literature. 

In drawing a villain we should always furnish 
him with something that may seem to justify 
himself to himself. 

1 This ode of Pindar was on a victory at tlie Nemean 
Games. See the 5th Nemean Ode. 

2 Probably Dr. Burney, the friend of Johnson, and 
father of the authoress of Evelina: — author of the History 
of Music. 



RICHARD PORSON. 147 

Like Simonides, I carry all I have about me, 
pretty neai'ly.-" 

Electricity, Electrura ; the quality of Anaber ; 
because Amber attracts substances. 

Virgil has everywhere arranged his words 
naturally and properly as in prose. No vio- 
lent transpositions or inversions ; every word is 
precisely where it ought to be. 

" I cannot dig ; to beg I am ashamed." "^ 
Who from that day to this, has seen a Jew 
who was a beggar or an agriculturist ? 

Authority should serve to excite attention, 
and no further. 

Wit is in general the finest sense in the 
world. 

We all speak in metaphors. Those who ap- 
pear not to do it, only use those which are 
worn out, and are overlooked as metaphors. 
The original fellow is therefore regarded as 
only witty ; and the dull are consulted as the 
wise. 

i See the story in Phsedrus, Lib. iv. Fab. 21, entitled, 
Naufragium Simonidis. The poet was shipwrecked, and 
to his anxious fellow-passengei-s, who inquired of him why- 
he did not endeavor to save some of his goods, he replied, 
" Mecura mea sunt cuncta." 

2 St. Luke, XVI. 3. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 



His present maimers and conversation remind 
me of a calm sunset in October. S. R. 




JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 

HE Italians were certainly not from 
Troy ; but from the North of Eu- 
rope. The Italian language is as 
copious as our own. 
Lucca an object of great curiosity. St. Ma- 
rino of none. 

Shei'idan better formed to captivate the vul- 
gar; Fox's manner of reasoning far grander 
and profounder. Much struck with Sheridan's 
speech, January 5, 1795.-^ 

Take the first man in Europe, and condemn 
him to live alone on his Estate. He would 
soon be devoured by the insects engendered 
there. He would cry out, " Save me from my 
Estate." What would he be but for the lower 
classes of Society ? 

1 For the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, 
and on the subject of the late trials of Hardy, Tooke, and 
Thelwall. 



152 JOHN EORNE TOOKE. 

At home it is his custom to relax and be 
happy with his friends in the afternoon. He 
had no society in tho Tower ^ — and therefore 
rose at four, and went to bed very early, that 
he might miss it less. 

No man can reason out from Avhat he knows. 
Paine ^ knew but little, and is therefore only to 
be trusted within his own sphere of observation. 

No metaphysical ideas. 

If you travelled through France, you would 
find the language gradually turnnig into Span- 
ish as you approached the Pyrenees, and Ital- 
ian as you approached the Alps. 

An illiterate people is most tenacious of their 
language. In traffic the seller learns that of 
the buyer before the buyer learns his. A bull 
in the field, when brought to town and cut up 
in the market, becomes boeuf, beef; a calf, 
veal ; a sheep, mouton ; a pig, pork ; — because 
there the Norman purchased, and the seller 
soon learnt his terms ; while the peasantry re- 
tained their own. 

1 He was committed to the Tower on a charge of high 
treason, May, 1794. — Vide infra, p. 161, &c. 

2 Thomas Paine, author of " Eights of Man " and 
" Common Sense." 



JOHN BORNE TOOKE. 153 

On sea-bathing — suppose a fish physician 
were to order his patients ashore. 

Plays and histories lead to error, as they give 
too much consequence to individuals. Were 
the Triumviri the proper objects of vengeance ? 
Each had his party in the Senate, and united 
with the rest to avail himself of theirs — the 
Senate should therefore have been cut off. 
When Ciesar fell was Liberty restored ? 

A woman's infidelity is then only a dishonor 
to her husband, when he sits down under it. 

Women have more feeling than men, and 
you may almost always hit the degree of regard 
or aversion they feel for men, when in their 
company- 
Love at first sight to be acted upon. An 
open temper discovers itself at once, and re- 
quires no study. 

Reasoning is only addition and subtraction. 
Read few books well. We forget names and 
dates ; and reproach our memory. They are 
of little consequence. We feel our limbs en- 
large and strengthen ; yet cannot tell the din- 
ner or dish that caused the alteration. Our 
minds improve though we cannot name the au- 
thor, and have forgotten the particulars. 



154 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 

I converse better than I write ; I write with 
labor. 

Nor wealth nor power can compensate for 
the loss of that luxury which he has, who can 
speak his mind, at all times and in all places. 

A great frequenter of the theatres and cof- 
fee-houses, long after he received pleasure from 
any of them. He would sit an act at a thea- 
tre, and then adjourn to a coffee-house, and 
then to the theatre, listless and cheerless ; and 
yet a slave to the habit of attending them ; and 
on his return home, when he sat up to read 
with delight, he would reproach himself for his 
folly in having thrown away his evening. At 
last he met with insults in the coffee-houses, 
and relinquished them entirely. He then re- 
tired to Wimbledon.^ 

Can any of them tell what sleep is, what 
brings on sleep, or what part of us sleeps ? I 
never dream but when disordered ; and when I 
dream I am conscious of dreaming. 

[I would never take a beautiful woman for 
ray wife. She would be studious to be admired 



1 He spent the latter part of his life at Wimbledon in 
Suri-ey, and died there in 1812. 



JOHN nORNE TOOKE. 155 

by others, and to please anybody more than her 
husband.] 

A child is fluent because it has no wish to sub- 
stitute one word for another. 

Those who know nothing of Education, think 
there is a magic in it, when in fact it does little 
for us. Plain common sense plainly expressed is 
worth all it has to show. 

I wish women would purr when they were 
pleased. 

[When you bow and subscribe yourself " your 
humble servant," your conscience does not fly in 
your face. Why then so scrupulous about other 
forms ?j 

Plays and Epic poems mislead us. A leader 
is often led. He has a thousand opinions to 
struggle with. 

Pieces of money are so many tickets for sheep, 
oxen, &c. 

When a pension is given, or a salary, a draft is 
issued on the tiller of the soil. 

There was a motion in the House to punish 
adultery with death. Levens, an old sinner, 
seconded the motion. He had never failed but 
when distrusted — the sex might afterwards rely 
on his not betraying their weakness. 



156 JOHN HORNE TOOKE.' 

Reads all books through ; and bad books most 
carefully, lest he should lose one good thought, 
being determined never to look into them again. 
A man may read a great deal too much. 

The Italian Literature very rich — the French 
have borrowed all they have from it, but could 
not take it all. 

Burke as metaphysical as he can be, with all 
his abuse of metaphysics. 

Admired Naples most, but would prefer living 
at Pisa. Venice, Rome, and Vesuvius exceeded 
all his expectations ; everything else fell below 
them. 

Was nine months in France before he could 
talk tolerably, though he labored very hard. 

Thoujiht there was little difference in organi- 
zation between man and man. 

We are fond of a miracle ; and if we cannot 
find one we make one. What is clear and nat- 
ural we are apt to despise. 

We talk of the mind and body as of two per- 
sons — but what do we mean ? All knowledge 
passes into us through the senses. We know of 
none that is not derivable through those channels, 
and may therefore fairly conclude there is none. 
The senses of some men are quicker and more 



JOHN BORNE TO ORE. 157 

discriminating than others ; and there lies the 
difference, but it is very small. One man, a 
little better off in this respect, and with great 
industry, will soon leave another out of sight. 
His superiority increases in arithmetical pro- 
gression ; as a small number, used frequently 
as a multiplier, will soon produce a greater sum 
total than a larger number used less often. Some 
are said to collect facts without the power to use 
them. It is because their senses cannot convey 
to them the nature of those facts. They cannot 
arrange and apply them. They are like an ig- 
norant man collecting curiosities. A man may 
have too many of these. Your room may be 
so full of furniture, that you cannot lay your 
hand on what you want. 

We improve by exercise of all kinds — a man 
may be getting on while sitting still in a coffee- 
house, or standing in the street. 

A slave-captain says to King Tom — " You go 
eat that man, but I will give you six oxen for 
him." "Will you?" "An ox is fatter than a 
man." " Agreed. — What fool that man ! " 
But somebody whispers " No ! by a man he can 
get more than sixty oxen." " How so ? " " By 
working him." " Indeed ! then I no more eat 



158 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 

my men. I make them work." Such is the 
policy in Europe. The tyrant no eat his slave, 
he works him. 

What is thinking but thing-ing, (res, reor) the 
operation of something upon you ? Do not then 
animals think ? 

When I first read the first book of Locke, I 
was enchanted. It seemed to me a new world 

— when I proceeded I stept into darkness. 
While he collected the scattered rays of light 
he had found already, he wrote like a great man 

— but, when he attempted to pi'oceed, it was all 
confusion. He puzzled about Power, &c. as 
some strange things which he could not define, 
thinking these words an authority for the exist- 
ence of these things. If he had gone into their 
derivations, the difficulty would have vanished. 

Hermes particularly stupid about " God is." -^ 
That voice is the best, which is not heard; 
which draws no attention to itself. All voices, 
bass, treble, tenor, may be pleasant in speaking, 
as in sino-ing. 

1 See remarks on the verb " Is," and on " God is," 
" Truth is ; " that is, on the meaning of the word " Is " 
when applied to the Deity. — Harris's Hermes, ohap. vi. 
pp. 89 to 92. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 159 

Women value themselves on their chastity. 
Men on their courage. Why ? Because of the 
rarity and difficulty of these virtues. They are 
both contrary to nature. 

Thinks all books should be read by the student ; 
all places seen by the traveller — as the best books 
and most curious places may not be recommended 
to you ; and vice versa. 

All men rank the dead languages thus — Latin, 
Greek, and Hebrew — and trace them upwards 
in that order — because they learnt them in 
that order in the schools, and have ever since 
kept up the association. Latin a compound of 
Greek and Gothic. 

Ridicule is no mean test of truth. If a thins, 
to be made ridiculous, must be distorted, then are 
we sure it is an object of respect. It is remark- 
able that by no writei', of any age or nation, was 
it ever attempted to make the Roman character 
ridiculous. 

Bacon, Hooker, and Milton — great writers, 
and the best we have. Temple a paltry one. 

[Could never forget the pleasure he felt in 
often retiring to read The Adventurer at the 
age of seventeen.] 

If a man has a single fact or observation to 



160 JOHN HORNE TO ORE. 

communicate, he writes a book on the whole 
subject of which that is a part. Hence the mul- 
tipHcity of books. 

Hume's Essays he read at first Avith delight, 
one by one, as they came out — and still reads 
them with it, they are so sweetly written. One 
of the first writers of any country ! His pupil, 
Smith,^ far, very far below him — his theory of 
Moral Sentiments nonsense — his Wealth of Na- 
tions full of important facts, but written with a 
wicked view. 

Hume's history bad in its tendency. He first 
wrote the History of the Stuarts falsely ; and 
then wi-ote the others to justify and accord with 
it. 

Spoke with contempt of Gibbon's history, 
though he called him a superior man. Instead 
of writing because he had something to say, he 
began life Avith a determination to write a book 
of some kind or other. Admired his letter on 
the Government of Berne, I. 388.^ 

How clearly has Gibbon revealed his char- 
acter ! A man of bad principles, either pri- 

1 Adam Smith. 

2 Letter from Gibbon to * * * on the Government of 
Berne. — Appendix to Memoirs of his Life, vol. i. 388. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 161 

vate or public, had better let his bitterest 
enemy write his life than venture to do it him- 
self. 

Would you do evil, that good might come ? 
No. But what is evil ? — I would put an in- 
nocent man to death, to save the lives of many 
innocent men. 

A team of horses should not draw me to a 
duel ; and yet, I would rather receive a shot 
than a blow. From a shot I might recover — 
but a blow is an ugly thing. If I could sit 
down under it, the peace of my life would be 
gone ; for a thousand rascals would strike me, 
where one would call me into the field. 

I attend to the derivation of such words as 
right, wrong, power, &c., but the names of 
towns deserve little notice. Such knowledge 
may assist Chronology ; but that is of little use. 
If a man knew the circumstances of C?esar's 
assassination, and placed it a hundred yeai'S 
sooner or later, what would it signify ? The 
line between Europe and Asia runs somewhere 
in the Turkish dominions — I don't know where, 
perhaps nobody knows ; but of what use would 
it be to know it ? 

When Dr. Beadon met me in St. Paul's 
11 



162 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 

Churchyard, and said he was to be Bishop of 
Gloucester, "Then," said I, "I suppose I must 
never call you Dick again." " Why," replied 
Beadon, pausing at every word, " I don't — ex- 
actly — see the necessity — of that." ^ 

A man with a little mind will educate his 
son below himself, and keep him there ; that 
he may say, " What a wise man my father is ! 
my father is a rich grocer." 

The more wretched a people are, the se- 
verer necessarily are the punishments : a sol- 
dier and sailor are punished for mutiny and de- 

1 Dr. Richard Beadon, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, 
is one of the parties between whom the imaginary dialogue 
in Tooke's Diversions of Purley is held. Tlie extreme in- 
timacy between Home Tooke and Dr. Beadon, and the 
very high opinion tlie Bishop entertained of his friend, 
are shown in the evidence given by the Bishop on Home 
Tooke's Trial for High Treason, 20 Nov. 1794: evidence 
highly creditable to both parties : — 

" Tooke. I beg your Lordship to say how long we have 
been acquainted? 

Answer. I think it is just forty years now. 

Tooke. Was that acquaintance slight, or affectionate and 
confidential ? 

Atiswer. For many years certainly not a slight acquaint- 
ance, but very confidential and very intimate," &c. &c. 
Gurney''s Trial of J. H. Tooke, ii. 160, et seq. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 1G3 

sertion with stripes and deatli ; because the sit- 
uation they would escape from, is so very ter- 
rible. And you may always judge of the com- 
fort or misery of a people by the severity of 
their penal laws. 

An affected man cannot be a moral man. 
The whole study of his life is to cheat you. 

The borough-mongers govern the country. 
When measures fail, and the people grumble, 
a few, who fill some responsible places, go out 
for awhile ; and the people are satisfied ; but 
the government continues the same. 

I would rather at any time lose a cause than 
be condemned to hear Adair gain it for me.^ 

There are men who pretend they come into 
the world, booted and spurred to ride you. 

I have made a point of reading all the dra- 
matic writings in every language I know. 

I read constantly the Arabian Nights over once 
in two years, and often once a year, in French. 

When in the Tower, I read Tom Jones and 
Gil Bias again, and some other novels, which a 
warder's wife lent me. 

[In the Tower he was without the privilege 

' Serje:int Adair was oue of the counsel for the Crown, 
on the trial of Home Tooke for high treason, in 1794. 



164 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 

of reading or writing for a fortnight.^ They 
then sent him three volumes — one of Locke — 
one of Chaucer^ — and Wilkins's Essay.' These 

1 This period of a fortnight appears, by Home Tooke's 
MS. note copied below, to be an error, at least as to the 
volume of Chaucer. 

2 In the volume of Chaucer thus taken to him — an old 
black-letter copy which he afterwards gave to Mr. Rogers 
— he made, while in the Tower, many notes in pencil, 
with reference to the subject of his work, Tlie Dlrersions 
of Purity. Among these is the following note in the 
margin of the first book of Boecius, de Consoladone Philoso- 
phice. " Tuesday, May 20, 1794. I began to mark this 
" translation of Boethius, in the Tower, with my pencil, 
" being denied the use of pen and ink. I was apprehended 
" at Wimbledon, Friday, May 16, conducted to the Tower, 
" Monday, May 19, 1794, without any charge; nor can I 
" conjecture their pretence of charge. Mr. Dundas, Sec- 
" retary of State, told me in the Privy Council, that ' It 
" was conceived that I was guilt}' of treasonable practices.' 
" He refused to tell me by whom it was conceived. I 
" offered to be examined, to any extent, if the Chancellor 
" or Dundas would declare that there was any information 
" upon oath against me for any treason. The Chancellor 
" said, that I seemed to object to the legality of the war- 
" rant ; but that I might object to that hereafter, in another 
" place." Home Tooke remarks that he afterwards learnt 
that at that very moment a bill was brought into the 
House of Commons to legalize this warrant, and to indem- 
nify the Ministers for issuing it. 

8 Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical 



JOHN nORNE TOOKE. 165 

were found on his table (at Wimbledon) and 
he was supposed to be reading them.] 

Dryden a more universal writer than Vol- 
taire. His prose very fine. His Don Sebastian 
the best play extant. 

It is best to let children read what they like 
best, till they have formed a taste fox* reading ; 
and not to direct what books they shall read. 
When young, and long afterwards, I read with- 
out method. 

Was at Paris several times, but saw little of 
the society there, having few letters. I saw few 
men of letters, for I was then anything but a 
man of letters. 

Never dream but when not well. Now sel- 
dom sleep above two hours together. 

The taxes at Genoa were sold to individuals ; 
so that the prosperity of the State, making them 
more productive, only enriched the purchasers. 
A nobleman, Griffoni, with immense possessions, 
retired early and lived most penuriously, to the 
great indignation and contempt of his fellow- 
citizens. At last, in his old age, he came out, 
sacrificed his fortune and its accumulations to 

Language, by Dr. John Wilkius, Bishop of Chester; pub- 
lished 1668. 



166 JOHN HORNE TO ORE. 

the redemption of the taxes, and relieved the 
people from the intolerable burden. What was 
the consequence ? The Government went to war 
again, and laid on more. Such would be the 
consequence here. The redemption of our debt 
would be a great calamity. The difficulty of 
extorting money checks the abuse of power. 
War begets poverty, poverty peace. 

When bad times come, I shall take to my 
garret-window. I shall take no part in them 
but as a looker-on. When the Surgeons are 
called in, the Physician retires. 

" Do as you would be done by," is a scoun- 
drel and paltry precept. A generous man goes 
beyond it. 

No man should be allowed to bequeathe his 
property to any descendant unborn. What af- 
fection can he feel for such an heir ? What 
relationship is there between a man and his 
grandson ? Do you set any value on a cucum- 
ber, because it sprung from your own excrement "i 
A man has little or no friendship for any human 
being ; and he determines to lock up his prop- 
erty ; he therefore leaves it to the offspring of 
his brother's youngest child. Would you allow 
such a thing in a state ? No, surely. 



JOHN BORNE TOOKE. 167 

"What does Godwin mean by the perfectibility 
of Man ? ^ That limb is perfect which is fitted 
to perform all its functions ; and that body is 
perfect which answers all its purposes. He talks 
errant nonsense. 

There is an old French proverb that must 
now and then occur to an observer in the present 
day : " Beaucoup de mal, peu de bruit ; Beaucoup 
de bruit, peu de mal." 

Wilkes desired that his tomb should be in- 
scribed, " J. W. a friend to Liberty." I am 
glad he was not ashamed to show a little grati- 
tude to her in his old age ; for she was a great 
friend to him.^ 

In a dispute between father and son, I have 
almost always sided with the father. The son's 
extravagance is generally the cause ; and it is 

1 See Godwin's Polit. Just. I. ch. 5, where the author uses 
the word " perfectible " to express the faculty of receiving 
perpetual improvement; not as capable, but incapable, of 
attaining to perfection. 

2 John Wilkes, famous as the editor of the "North 
Briton," and as the opposer of general warrants, which, 
through his perseverance, were judicially declared to be 
illegal. He obtained, late in life, the lucrative office of 
City Chamberlain, through his notorietj- as a liberal poli- 
tician. 



168 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 

Lard that the father should suffer for the folly of 
two youths — his son's and his own. 

When I was travelling through Italy, the post- 
boy cursed all the saints in Paradise, and five 
miles round. " Why five miles round ? " " Be- 
cause some of them may be at their country- 
houses." When Bonaparte comes to England, his 
curse, therefore, will not reach me at Wimbledon. 

Power, said Lord to Tooke, should fol- 
low property. Very well, he replied, then we 
will take the property from you, and the power 
shall follow it. 

When in company at College, a general ques- 
tion arose among the young men — what were 
their fathers ? When it was Tooke's turn to 
answer it, he said, his was " a Turkey Mer- 
chant." He was a poulterer in Clare Market. 

No man can bring himself to believe that he 
shall die. My bx^other, who left me £100 a year, 
and pronounced himself at the point of death, 
desired that such and such things might be 
returned to him if he recovered. 

Prophecies are thrown about like grain — and 
some strike and take root — The rest are lost and 
forsotten. 



JOHN nORNE TOOKE. 169 

I believe in a first cause, because every other 
supiDosition is more absurd. 

[He who sacrifices his good fame to his sense 
of right, has still his conviction that some cir- 
cumstances will lead hereafter to a justification 
of his conduct, at least with those among whom 
he would wish to build a memory.] 

His son had just returned from India, dis- 
missed from some military situation for miscon- 
duct. He called in the evening at his father's 
gate. Tooke was fortunately from home, and has 
since refused to see him. He has now enlisted 
as a private into the dragoons. Tooke spoke of 
it as a great calamity. Three years ago he felt 
uncommonly well, and promised himself a happy 
summer ; but something, he thought, must hap- 
pen to prevent it ; he was so pei'fectly free from 
trouble. His daughters in vain endeavored to 
dissuade him from it. In April ^ he was appre- 
hended, and confined. The same presentiment 
for the same reasons had now returned, and had 
just been fulfilled. 

1 If this refers to his arrest for high treason, the word 
April is a mistake for May. Vide supra, p. 164. 



170 JOHN BORNE TOOKE. 

The great use of Education is to give us con- 
fidence, and to make us think ourselves on a level 
with other men. An uneducated man thinks there 
is a magic in it, and stands in awe of those who 
have had the benefit of it. It does little for us. 
No man, as Selden says, is the wiser for his 
learning. 

When children read to you what they do not 
understand, their minds are exercised in affixing 
ideas to the words. At least it was so with me. 

"So I understand, Mr. T., you have all the 
blackguards in London M'ith you," said O'Brien 
to him on the hustings at Westminster.^ " I 
am happy to have it, Sir, on such good author- 
ity." 

" Now, young man, as you are settled in 
town," said my uncle, " I would advise you to 
take a wife." " With all my heart. Sir ; whose 
wife shall I take?" 

[As to the prisoners under sentence, it is but an 
unhappiness for a few days — not one of them 
but wishes that he had died last week. 

1 Mr. Tooke was twice candidate for Westminster — in 
1790 and 1796 — but was unsuccessful on each occasion. 



JOHN BORNE TO ORE. 171 

Think nothing of style as style. Truth is all 
I wish for.] 

Man is a little kingdom, and if he makes one 
passion a favorite at the expense of the rest, he 
must be miserable. The rest will demand satis- 
faction. 

I have always least to say in the company of 
pretty women, for it is then that I am most 
anxious to recommend myself. 

Upon his acquittal,^ a young woman intro- 
duced herself to him, as the daughter of one of 
his Jury. " Then give me leave. Madam," he 
said, " to call you Sister, for your Father has just 
given me life." 

" The Law," said Judge Ashurst in a charge, 
"is open to all men, to the poor as well as the 
rich." — And so is the London Tavern. 

On my first visit to Paris, I dressed myself a 
la mode, and very soon called upon D'Alembert 
with a letter of introduction. D'Alembert re- 
ceived me very civilly, and talked a little on the 
topics of the day, on operas, comedies, suppers. 
I withdrew disappointed, for I saw he thought 

1 On his trial for high treason, 1794. 



172 JOHN EORNE TOOKE. 

little of me, and was followed out of the room by 
an Englishman in a plain suit, who had sat 
silent during the conversation. " I beg your 
pardon, Sir," said the stranger, " but M. D'Alem- 
bert has mistaken your character. He believes 
you to be a petit maitre." I took the hint, and 
threw off my finery. The stranger was David 
Hume. 

Hume wrote his history, as witches say their 
prayers — backwards.^ 

If such be their measures, let us resist (mur- 
murs of disapprobation) as the anvil to the ham- 
mer. 

In England the people believe once a week — 
on a Sunday. 

The hand of the Law is on the Poor, and its 
shadow on the Rich. 

You and I, my dear brother, have inverted 
one of the laws of Nature : for you have risen by 
your gravity, and I have fallen by my levity.^ 

1 He published the History of the Stuarts first, and then 
the earlier reigns. Vide supra, p. 158. 

2 In Thos. Moore's Memoirs, edited by Lord John Russell, 
vol. VII. p. 181, Moore attributes this saying, on the author- 
ity of Mr. Shiel, to an Irish baiTister, Keller, Moore's god- 
father, addressing some judge. Mr. Roger's record must 
have been the earlier in date. 



JOHN EORNE TOOKE. 173 

"If I was compelled (I said somewhere pub- 
licly) to make a choice, I should not hesitate 
to prefer despotism to anarchy." " Then you 
would do," replied Tooke, " as your ancestors 
did at the Reformation. They rejected Purga- 
tory, and kept Hell." \_Lord Grey, 1837.] 



TALLEYRAND. 



TALLEYRAND. 




"HEN I arrived at Paris on my re- 
turn to France,^ Madame de Stael 
was very anxious to serve me, and 
I was introduced by her to Barras,^ 
who gave me an invitation to his country house 
near Marly. I arrived there very early in the 
day, and was sitting there alone, when two young 
men entered the room, and began a discussion, 
saying. Shall we go, or shall we not? At last 
they cried, " Allons ! " and away they went. 
Not long afterwards there was great distress in 
the house. They had gone to bathe in the 
Seine, and one of them, a natural son of Barras 



1 Talleyrand returned to France from America about 
1796. 

2 Barras had been a Member of the Convention; and 
when Talleyrand was introduced to him through the in- 
fluence of Madame de Stael, in 1797, he was one of the five 
Directors. 

12 



178 TALLEYRAND. 

(query) bad been drowned. Barras was incon- 
solable, and all my endeavors to console him, 
such as they were, (for I i-eturned with him in 
his carriage to Paris,) were of no avail ; but they 
gave him such an impression in my favor, that 
he rendered me every service he could afterwards, 
and as long as he lived. He introduced me to 
Napoleon, and I came into office almost imme- 
diately.-' He always spoke of my kindness on 
that occasion with a warmth that affected me. 

That dispatch which Bonaparte published on 
his retreat from Moscow, was it written by 
himself? By himself, certainly. 

Which is the best portrait of him ? That which 
represents him at Malmaison. It is done by 
Isabey. The bust I gave Alexander Baring, 
done by Canova, is excellent. It stands too 
low at present. 

Did he shave himself? Always; though he 

1 Madame de Stael says that it was through her influence 
that Talleyrand got into office, in the Department of Foreign 
Affairs. She adds, " M. de Talleyrand avoit besoin qu'on 
I'aidat pour arriver au pouvoir; rnais il se passoit ensuite 
txhs bien des autres pour s'y maintenir." 

Cansid. sur la Revol. Franc. 



TALLEYRAND. 179 

was long about it, shaving a little, and then con- 
versing, if any body was with him. A King by 
birth, said he, smiling, is shaved by another. He 
who makes himself Roi shaves himself. 

Sieyes ^ was the first man in the Revolution — 
" Le premier horame dans la Revolution." To him 
indeed we owe it entirely. He, it was, who ac- 
complished these three measures : the abolition 
of the three estates, the enrolment of the National 
Guard, and the division of France into depart- 
ments. I was walking one day with him in the 
Champs Elysees, when an officer of the Mar^- 
chauss^e overset a poor woman's basket, con- 
taining les plaisirs des dames (wafers). " This 
can never be," said he, " when the National 
Guard is established." — March 22, 1833, at 
Lord Holland's. 

1 L'Abb^ Sieyes, a member of the States-General in 
1789. Though a clergyman he was a deputy of the Tiers- 
Etat, and he proposed the decree which constituted that 
order, the National Assembly of France; and thus, in effect, 
annihilated the power of the two other orders in the assem- 
bly. Madame de Stael remarks, " Ce d^cret passa, et ce 
decret 6toit la revolution elle-meme." 

Consid. sur la Revol. Franc. 



180 TALLEYRAND. 



Again at Lord Holland's in Bur- 
lington Street. 

He [Bonaparte] was with the army of Eng- 
land at Boulogne,-' when he heard of Mack's 
being at Uhn. " If it had been mine to place 
him, I should have placed him there." In an 
instant the army was in full march,^ and he in 
Paris. I attended him to Strasburg,^ and was 
alone with him in the house of the Prefet — in one 
of the chambers there — when he fell, and foamed 
at the mouth, " Fermez la porte," he cried, and 
from that moment lay as dead on the floor. Ber- 
tier came to the door. " On ne pent pas entrer." 
The Empress came to the door. " On ne peut 
pas entrer." In about half an hour he recovered ; 
but what would have been my situation if he had 

1 The army and flotilla he had assembled at Boulogne, 
M'ith the intention of invading or threatening England. 

2 Napoleon broke up the flotilla and army at Boulogne 
in the beginning of Sept. 1805, and ordered the march of 
the army towards the Danube, where the Austrian armies 
were. 

8 Napoleon reached Strasburg on 26 Sept. 1805. 



TALLEYRAND. 181 

died ? ^ Before daybreak he was in his carriage, 
and in less than sixty hours, the Austi-ian army 
had capitulated.^ 

They lived together. "Were they married? 
Pas tout a fait. 

Of Lady F S 's dress : II commence 

trop tard, et finit trop tot. Comme vous voyez. 

Of Robert Smith : ^ C'etoit done votre pere 
qui n'etoit pas si bien. 

Vous savez nager, je crois.^ 

1 The story of Napoleon's illness at Strasburg I repeated 
to Lucien, who listened to it with great sang-froid. " Have 
you ever heard it before V " "Never. It is an infirmity to 
which many great men have been subject — Caesar among 
others. My brother was once before attacked in the same 
way, but then (he said with a smile) he was defeated I be- 
lieve." S. R. 

2 The Austrian army at XJlm, under General Mack, about 
30,000 strong, laid down their arms before Napoleon on 17 
Oct. 1805, and shortly afterwards the French army entered 
Vienna. 

3 On his praising the beauty of his mother. Mr. Rob- 
ert Smith was the brother of the Reverend Sidney 
Smith; he was familiarly known by the name of Bohus 
Smith. 

4 In answer to a lady who asked, if she and another 
lady were both in danger of drowning, which he would 
help first. 



182 TALLEYRAND. 

I have committed one mistake in life. Et 
quand finira t'elle? 

I suffer the torments of Hell. Deja? 

Talleyrand, in the summer of 1834, arriving 
at Holland House, and entering the library, 
where many of the ministers were sitting apart, 
here and there, in vai'ious places, thus addressed 
them, "Messieurs, vous parlez a I'oreille. II 
faut aller au club pour apprendre ce que c'est." 
And so, said Lord Grey, he went to the Trav- 
eller's and learnt it all. — Lord Grey at Howick. 
Oct. 1834. 

Charles the Tenth requested the last Pope to 
absolve him from his coronation oath, and was 
I'efused. He I'equested the present Pope, and 
was absolved. — Talleyrand to Bohus Smith. 

Talleyrand is still alive, and will continue to 
live, parceque le Diable en a peur. — Pozzo di 
Borgo. 

When Lord Londonderry attacked Talleyrand 
in Parliament, and I defended him, saying, in 



TALLEYRAND. 183 

everything as far as I had observed, he had 
always been fair and honest, Talleyrand burst 
into tears, saying, " II est le seul homme qui a 
jamais dit de bien de moi." — The Duke of 
Wellington to S. R. 



THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 




THOMAS LORD ERSKINE 



The First Brief. Greenwich Hospital Cause} 

N a Sunday in June 1778,^ I was 
engaged to dine with Agar in New 
Norfolk Street, who had become 
acquainted with me at Tunbridge- 
wells ; but I was persuaded by a young man, 
"William Lyon, an attorney, to walk as far as 
Enfield Chase and dine with Mr. Barnes, a 
wine-merchant in St. Mary Axe, remarkable for 

1 This was an application to the Court of King's Bench 
for a Criminal Information against Capt. Thos. Baillie, 
Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, for a libel 
contained in a printed case and memorial addressed to the 
Governors of the Hospital, in which he exposed serious 
abuses in that Hospital, and reflected severely on the con- 
duct of the parties having the management of it. 

Howell's State Trials, vol. xxi. 

2 This was shortly before he was called to the Bar, which 
took place on 6 July, 1778. See below, p. 189. 



188 THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 

the excellence of his claret. When half way, he 
challenged me to leap over a ditch hy the road- 
side. I leaped over it ; but, in returning, the 
bank gave way, and I fell and sprained my 
ankle. The expedition was over ; I could pro- 
ceed no farther, and returned in a stage-coach. 

I had left Kentish town and was then living in 
Red Lion Passage, while a house, which I had 
taken in Serjeants Inn, was painting and white- 
washing. My wife was confined at the time, and 
at her suggestion I resolved to keep my engage- 
ment at Agar's. She said I was properly pun- 
ished, and I felt that I was. 

When I arrived the dinner was begun. A tall 
man drew his chair aside, and I went into tlie gap. 
He talked much about the pictures, and so did I, 
though I knew little of the subject, turning that 
little to as good an account as I could. When 
dinner was over, he drew Agar aside, and asked 
who I was. Agar said I was a lawyer, and said 
much in my favor. " Could he be prevailed 
upon to take a brief from my brother ? " " Per- 
haps he could," said Agar in his pompous manner. 
I knew nothing of this conversation, but on 
my return home next day, my servant, John 
Nicholls, who had served under me in the 



THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 189 

Royals/ and who, when he set my books in- 
order, used always to place the Bible a-top, as 
that, he said, was the best book ; told me when 
he opened the door, that I must be in another 
scrape, for a cross ill-looking man, in a large 
gold-laced cocked hat, had been twice inquiring 
for me. " He insists, Sir, upon seeing you, and 
is at this moment waiting for you in Bloomsbury 
Square Coffee-house." 

I went there, and there I found an old seaman 
with a furrowed face. He was sitting gloomily 
in one of the boxes, with a small red trunk on 
the table before him, and his sword lying on the 
trunk. I mentioned my name. He said " There 
are my papers. Will you read them over ? " It 
ended in my taking them home. 

I was called to the bar in a few days (6th of 
July) ; and at a consultation held on the 1st 
of November, Bearcroft, Peckham, and Murphy ,'^ 



1 The Koyals, or First Eegiment of Foot, in which Lord 
Erskine had been a Lieutenant before studying for the 
bar. 

2 These were three of the counsel retained, with Erskine, 
for the defendant. They were probably surprised at a 
mere novice venturing to express an opinion contrary to 
that of his leaders. 



190 THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 

were for consenting to a compromise ; our client 
to pay all costs. " My advice, Gentlemen," I 
said, " may savor more of my late profession 
" than my present, but I am against consenting." 
" I'll be damned if I do," said Baillie, and he 
hugged me in his arms, crying, " You are the 
man for me." " Then the consultation is over," 
said Bearcroft. " It is," I replied. " Let us 
walk in the gardens." 

When the cause came on ^ the senior counsel 
exhausted the day, and the patience of the Court. 
It grew dusk and my tui*n arrived ; when Lord 
Mansfield adjoui'ned. I began next morning, 
fresh, and before a fresh audience ; and when it 
was over,^ all crowded round me. Sir Archi- 
bald McDonald ^ had known me at school. Lee * 
had known my father at Harrowgate. And that 

1 On the 23d Nov. 1778, in the King's Bench, before 
Lord Mansfield. The tliree counsel, above named, spoke 
for the defendant on that day, and Erskine spoke on 
the following morning, after which the counsel for the 
prosecutors replied. 

2 The defendant was successful, the application for leave 
to prosecute him being refused, with costs. 

3 A leading barrister at the time, subsequently Solicitor- 
General and Attorney-General. 

4 A leading barrister, afterwards Solicitor-General. 



THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 191 

night I went home and saluted my wife, with 
sixty-five retaining fees in my pocket. 

Had I not taken a nobleman's degree of M. A, 
I could not have been called to the bar till two 
years afterwards.^ I was then in my twenty- 
ninth year, having been born on the 21st of 
January, 1749.^ 

The Geranium Avas mine. Not so the Birth 
of the Rose, a Poem ascribed to me. 

Dictated hy him to me as I sat with 
my pen in my hand after dinner in St. 
James's Place, in 1816. S. R. 

Often was I employed to establish a Will, and 
the history of one of them I can never forget. 

Two old Maids in a country town, being 
quizzical in their dress and demeanor, were not 
unfrequently the sport of the idle boys in the 



1 He had taken a degree of M. A. at Cambridge, iu 
June, 1778. 

2 In Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, it is 
said that Lord Erskine was born in January, 1750. Lord 
Erskine possibly gave the date of his birth accoi'ding to 
the old style, and Lord Campbell, according to the new 
style, introduced in 1752. This would reconcile the dif- 
ference in their statements. 



192 THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 

market place, and being once so beset on their 
way to Church, a young Curate, who had been 
just appointed there, reproved the urchins as he 
passed by in his gown and cassock, and, offering 
an arm to each of the ladies, conducted them 
triumphantly into their pew near the pulpit. 

A great intimacy followed, and, dying not 
long afterwaxds, they left him all they had. The 
will was disputed, and, when I rose in my place 
to establish it, I related the story, and said, 
" Such, Gentlemen, is the value of small cour- 
tesies. In my first speech here I was brow- 
beaten by the Judge upon the bench, and honest 
Jack Lee ^ took my part. When he died he left 
me this bag, and I need not say how much I 
value it. It shall serve me while I live, and 
when I die I will be buried in it." — After dinner 
at Holland House. 

1 See Lord Erskine's mention of Lee, supra, p. 190. 



WALTER SCOTT. 



13 




WALTER SCOTT. 

Feb. 1834. 
Mt dear Sir/ 

I OU asked me not long ago if I could 
recall any of his [Walter Scott's] 
conversation. Happy should I be 
if I could ; but, with a single ex- 
cei)tion, I can only remember generally the 
charm which he threw around him wherever he 
came. That exception is however at your ser- 
vice. 

Sitting one day alone with him in your house, 
(it was the day but one before he left it to em- 
bark at Portsmouth for Malta,) I led him, among 
other things, to tell me once again a story of 
himself which he had formerly told me, and 
which I had often wished to recover. When I 

1 This letter and the following anecdote were communi- 
cated by Mr. Rogers to Mr. Lockhart, and are printed in 
LocTthart's Life of Scott. 



196 WALTER SCOTT. 

returned home I wrote it down, as nearly as I 
could, in his own words ; and here they are. 

The subject is an achievement wortliy of 
Ulysses himself, and such as many of his school- 
fellows could, no doubt, have related of him ; 
but, I feai', I have done it no justice, though the 
story is so very characteristic that it should not 
be lost. The inimitable manner in which he told 
it — the glance of the eye, the turn of the head, 
and the hght that played over his faded features 
as, one by one, the circumstances came back to 
him, accompanied by a thousand boyish feelings 
that had slept perhaps for years — these no lan- 
guage, not even his own, could convey to you ; 
but you can supply them. Would that others 
could do so, who had not the good fortune to 
know him ! S. R. 

To his Son-in-Law, John Lockhart. 

" There was a boy in my class at school who 
stood always at the top ; nor could I with all my 
efforts supplant him. Day passed after day and 
still he kept his place, do what I would ; till at 
length I observed that, when a question was 
asked him, he always fumbled with his fingers at 
a particular button in the lower part of his 



WALTER SCOTT. 197 

waistcoat. To remove it, therefore, became expe- 
dient in my eyes ; and in an evil moment it was 
removed with a knife. Great was my anxiety 
to know the success of my measure ; and it suc- 
ceeded too well. When the boy was again ques- 
tioned, his fingers sought again for the button, 
but it was not to be found. In his distress he 
looked down for it ; it was to be seen no more 
than to be felt. He stood confounded, and I 
took possession of his place ; nor did he ever 
recover it ; or ever, I believe, suspect who was 
the author of his wrong. 

" Often in after-life, has the sight of him smote 
me as I passed by him ; and often have I resolved 
to make him some reparation; but it ended in 
good i-esolutions. Though I never renewed my 
acquaintance with him, I often saw him ; for he 
tilled some inferior office in one of the courts of 
law at Edinburgh. Poor fellow ! He took early 
to drinking, and I believe he is dead." 

Friday, Oct. 21, 1831, <^e day but one 
before he set off for Naples. 



LOKD GRENVILLE 




LORD GRENVILLE. 

Dropmore, Sept. 1823. 
m^ HAVE often heard Mr. Pitt talk 
"IfM about Bolingbroke, but do not think 
-t^4M lie admired him much.^ 

^ ' He [Mr. Pitt] ascribed his own 
fluency to the following circumstance. At 
Hayes,^ where they lived in great seclusion, it 
was his custom in the morning to construe his 
author, Virgil or Livy, to his tutor, Mr. Wilson ; 
and in the evening, after tea, to translate the 
same passage freely, with the book open before 
him, to his father, and the rest of the family. He 
often mentioned this to me as the way he thought 
he had acquired his fluency in public speaking ; 

1 See Mr. Grattan's statement as to Mr. Pitt's, wish to 
possess the speeches of Bolingbroke. — Ante, p. 127. 

2 Hayes, in Kent, the seat of Mr. Pitt's father, William, 
Earl of Chatham, whose wife was the sister of Lord Gren- 
ville's father. 



202 LORD GRENVILLE. 

and it is remarkable that in conversation, when 
an ancient writer was quoted, he always turned 
the passage into English (for his own use, as it 
seemed) before he appeared completely to enter 
into it; a habit I ascribe to this practice.^ 

Mr. Fox's speeches were full of repetition. 
He used to say that it was necessary to hammer 
it into them ; but I rather think he could not do 
otherwise. His speech on the "Westminster Scru- 
tiny ^ was the best I ever heard him make. It 
was a wonderful display of eloquence. I did not 
hear him latterly. 

Once in my holidays, when I passed ten days 
at Hayes, Lord Chatham was confined to his bed 
with the gout. When I was going away he sent 

1 Redhead Yorke mentions his being present when some- 
body quoted the following passage from the " De Claris 
Oratoribus " [of Cicero] to Mr. Pitt: "Est cum eloquentia 
sicut flamraa: materie alitur, motfi excitatur, et urendo 
clarescit." It was observed that it was untranslatable; on 
which Mr. Pitt immediately replied, " No, I should trans- 
late it thus: — 'It is -with eloquence as with a flame. It 
requires fuel to feed it, motion to excite it, and it brightens 
as it burns.' " — Note in Comnwnplace-Book of Samuel Rogers. 

2 In Ho. of Com. 8th June, 1784. — Pari. Hist. xxiv. p. 
883, &c. 



LORD GRENVILLE. 203 

for me to his bedside, and among other questions 
asked me what book I was reading. When I 
answered, " Virgil," he said, " A good book ! 
you cannot read a better. In what part are you ? 
Do you remember these lines ? 

' Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo; 
Projice tela manu, sanguis meus.' " i 

I quoted them in a speech on the American War. 
" A great Poet, and no greater Poet than States- 
man, has told you how you should act on this 
occasion." 

Nothing more shows the malice ofl some of 
Milton's biographers, than the pleasure they take 
in relating that Milton suffered corporal punish- 
ment at college.^ It was then and long afterwards 

1 iEneid, vi. 834. 

2 The story is said to have been first told by Aubrey in 
his short MS. notes on the Life of Milton, (see John Au- 
brey's Lives of Eminent Men, vol. ii. p. 444, of " Letters of 
Eminent Persons, &c. Lond. 1813,") where the author says 
of Milton, " His first tutor there [at Cambridge] was Mr. 
" Chapel], from whom receiving some unkindness (whipt 
" him), he was afterwards transferred to the tuition of one 
" Mr. Towell." The words " whipt him " appear inter- 
lined in the MS. This statement of Aubrey's is quoted. 



204 LORD GRENVILLE. 

in constant use in both Universities ; nor would 
it Lave been anything unusual, if he had received 
it ; but it is nowhere said that he had. The 
lines quoted from him by Johnson ^ are followed 
by others from which it may be clearly inferred 
that he suffered rustication,^ and therefore not 
corporal punishment. A good life of Milton is 
much wanted. No man ever acted up to his 
belief of what was right, more conscientiously 
and firmly. 

and believed by Thos. Warton, in his Life of Dean Bath- 
urst, p. 153, and in his " Minor Poems of Milton," p. 
418. It is alluded to by Johnson in his Life of Milton, 
who relates it, but not apparently with pleasure. He 
says, " I am ashamed to relate what I fear is true, that 
Milton," &c. Even if this be thought " the insult of 
aflfected concern," as Symmons calls it, yet is it not con- 
cern or shame for the University rather than for Milton? 

1 The lines quoted by Johnson in his Life of Milton : — 

" Nee duri libet usque minas perferre magistri, 
Cpeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo," 
are interpi-eted by him as probably signifying the inflic- 
tion of corporal punishment. Hayley, in his Life of Mil- 
ton (p. 16), interprets the above lines as meaning threats 
only of punishment, which he conceives was not inflicted. 

2 Symmons considers it as proved by the College Regis- 
ter that Milton was not rusticated, and did not lose a term, 
as Johnson had thought probable. — Summons's Life of 
Milton. 



LORD GRENVILLE. 205 

Lord Chatliam, according to Mrs. A. Pitt, was 
always reading Spencer.' " He who knows 
Spencer," says Burke, " has a good hold on the 
English tongue." 

Gibbon's notes are delightful. 

Locke an extraordinary man, though in meta- 
physics he blundered about ideas, and though in 
politics he believed in an original compact ; (how 
can a man bind his grandchild unborn ? ) In the- 
ology I am told, by those who understand those 
matters, that he erred most of all. 

I think that the three greatest men that Eng- 
land has produced, were Bacon, Newton, and 
Milton. 

Sheridan's speech on the Begums in the House 
of Commons^ admirable — in Westminster HalP 
contemptible, I heard both. 

Burke's draft of a petition for the Peers, in one 
of his latter volumes, perhaps his greatest effort 
of eloquence. 

1 Mrs. Anne Pitt told Mr. Grattan that Lord Chatham had 
never read but one book — The Faery Queene. Vide supra, 
p. 128. 

2 On 7 Feb. 1787, on the charge against Warren Has- 
tings. — Pari. Hist. xxvi. p. 274, et seq. 

8 On 3 June, 1788, and later days. 



206 LORD GRENVILLE. 

Earl St. Vincent a great man. He enforced 
discipline at the expense of his popularity. Not 
rewarded as he deserved ; but the late King 
had many prejudices ; his was perhaps the nar- 
rowest mind I ever knew. 

The more we know of King William the 
Third, the more we must admire him. How 
superior to his ministers, as we learn more par- 
ticularly from the Shrewsbury Papers. The 
House of Orange produced three very great 
men : William the first Prince,^ Prince Maurice,^ 
and William the Third. Compared with these, 
how insignificant the Idol of the French, Henry 
the Fourth. 

July, 1825. 

He sits, summer and winter, on the same sofa, 
his favorite books on the shelves just over his 
head. 

Roger Ascham's style labored and artificial- 
Yet I often read him. Here he is just above me. 

Milton always within reach. 

1 Prince of Orange; Stadtholder of Holland from about 
1577 till his assassination in June, 1584. 

■•2 Maurice of Nassau; Prince of Orange, and Stadtholder 
of HoUand from 1584 to 1625. 



LORD GRENVILLE. 207 

Lord Bathurst left us while we were walking. 
" Lord Bathurst," I said, " is gone to his busi- 
ness." " I would rather he was there than L 
If I was to live my life over again," he con- 
tinued with a sigh, " I should do very differ- 
ently." 

We sat down to rest in the Pinery seat, 
inscribed 

" Pulcherrima pinus in hortis," l 

and the clock of the stables struck twelve. Few 
things, he said, affect me more than a clock — 
its duration — its perseverance — the same voice, 
morning, noon, and night. There is somewhere 
a good account of a castle-clock in the Mysteries 
of Udolpho. " That old fellow crowed through 
the siege, and is crowing still." ^ Yes, says he, 
(the clock was then striking,) that voice will be 
heard long after I am in my grave and forgot- 
ten. [Not forgotten, S. R.] 

Dugald Stewart, in his Philosophical Essays, 
p. 420, gives a good description of a clock. He 

1 Virgil. Eclog. vii. 65. 

2 Mysteries of Udolpho, chap. 34. 



208 LORD GRENVILLE. 

gives it as another's, but he owned it to be his, 
when I mentioned it to him.^ 

The passage I admire most in the Odyssey is 
where Menelaus mentions his affection for Ulys- 
ses ; and Telemachus weeps.^ 

I once said to Mr. Pitt, not at all in the way 
of flattery, " How came you to speak with a 
fluency and correctness so much beyond any of 
us?" "Why," he replied, "I have always thought 
"that what little command of language I have, 
" came from a practice I had of reading off in 
" the family after tea some passage in Livy or 
" Cicero, which I had learnt in the morning." 
And to this practice, said Lord Grenville, I think 
it was owing that whenever a sentence from the 
classics was quoted, he always translated it aloud 

1 Dugald Stewart quotes it as from Bailly's Histoire de 
I'Astronomie Moderne ; he speaks of the attention of the 
Astronomical Observer being drawn, among other secon- 
dary things, " to tlie silent lapse of time interrupted only 
by the beats of the Asti'onomical Clock." In a subsequent 
note he says he finds he has not quoted correctly ; and 
appears to admit tliat it was not to be found in Bailly's 
work. 

2 Odyssey, iv. 100, &c. 



LORD GRENVILLE. 209. 

to himself before he went on further. (Tliis an- 
ecdote Lord Grenville related to me, the last 
time, of his own accord, when we were sitting 
by ourselves one day after dinner ; and I have 
put it down again, on account of the way in 
which he introduced it. S. E.) 

Mr. Pitt used often to repeat with pleasure 
the six or eight lines added by Mrs. Rowe to 
Rowe's Lucan. 

You have not named the best style in its 
way : — Blackstone's.^ 

Raleigh's " O eloquent, just, and mighty 
Death," one of the finest, if not the finest, pas- 
sage in English prose.^ 

Mitford, in his account of Xenophon's place 
of retirement/ struck me exceedingly. 

1 Mr. Fox makes the same remark. — Supra, p. 56. 

' eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could 
advise, thou hast persuaded, what none have dared, thou 
hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou 
only hast cast out of the world and despised ; thou hast 
drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the 
pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all 
over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet. — Raleigh's 
History of the Wm-ld, Part I. Book v. p. 669. 

3 See Mitford's Greece, iii. c. 28, s. 9. The place was 
Scillus, in the Peloponnesus. 
14 



210 LORD GRENVILLE. 

I have seldom been so vexed, as when I in- 
troduced the present King of France, Charles 
the Tenth,-"^ to the old King.^ He had desired 
to be presented, and it was not to be refused, 
and the audience was necessarily a private one. 
When I announced him in the closet, the King 
began a conversation running from topic to 
topic. He was often at a loss ; but was un- 
walling to come to a conclusion, till I re- 
minded him that Monsieur was at the door. 
The King spoke French very ill, and was al- 
w^ays embaiTassed on receiving a foreigner. As 
for the Bourbons, he hated them all, and indeed 
had no reason to love them. 

At first, I understand, he spelt ill when writ- 
ing Enghsh ; but improved afterwards. 

Castlereagh ignorant to the last, with no prin- 
ciple or feeling, right or wrong. Befoi-e he 
spoke, he would collect what he could on the 
subject, but never spoke above the level of a 



1 Then Monsieur, the brother of Louis XVIII. 

2 George III. 



LORD GRENVILLE. 211 

newspaper. Had three things in his favor: tact, 
good humor, and courage. 

Liverpool^ indolent in the extreme. Has no 
speaker on his side. If the Chancellor (Lord 
Eldon) speaks, it is generally to oppose him. 

Never was such a thing done, as sending a 
cabinet minister ^ to Vienna to act as he pleased, 
one who was irresponsible, one who knew noth- 
ing, and who had never looked into a map. 

Gibbon's best work, his review of the Roman 
Empire in the first volume, his only instance of 
generalizing. 

Mr. Pitt used often to repeat the beginning of 
the Preface to Eikonoclastes,^ quoted by Sym- 
raons : " To descant on the misfortunes of a per- 
son fallen," &c. I. 401. 

He always spoke of Lord Chatham with affec- 
tion, and no wonder ; for there never was a father 
more partial to a son. How well I remember 



1 The Earl of Liverpool was then (1825) Prime Minister. 

2 Lord Castlereagh, who attended the Congress of Vienna, 
in 1815. 

3 By Milton : quoted in Symmons's Life of Milton. 



212 LORD GREN VILLE. 

the hornets' nest mentioned in Lord Chatham's 
letter ! (See Bishop Prettyman's Life.^) I was 
at Hayes at the time. 

The two speeches, and the only ones (I believe 
I may say it confidently from my intimacy with 
him), which he [Mr. Pitt] himself corrected, 
were those on the Sinking-Fund^ and on the 
answer to Bonaparte's Letter.^ The first was a 
very indifferent speecli. 

He read the Poets, and had certainly imagina- 
tion. Once, when the subject for the Prize at 
Oxford was given out, I observed, " What an 
impossible subject for a Poem ! What can the 
poor boys make of it ? " "A good deal," he re- 
plied ; and, walking up and down the room, he 
recited in his prose a poem on the subject. I 
have often regretted that I did not go up-stairs 
and write it down. 

In his earlier life he was gay and delightful 
in conversation. At last his temper clouded. 

1 Letter from Lord Chatham to Mr. Pitt, dated Hayes, 2 
Sept. 1774. — TomUii's Life of Pitt, voL i. pp. 15, 16. 

2 The sinking-fund was proposed by Pitt to Parliament on 
29 March, 1786. — Pari. Hist. xxv. 1294, et seq. 

3 On Bonaparte's letter to George IIL making overtures 
for a general peace : 22 Jan. 1800. — Pari. Hist, xxxiv. p. 
1301, et seq. 



LORD GRENVILLE. 213 

Dr. Addingtori ^ ruined his liealtb. Port wine 
was Addington's great remedy ; and at Hayes I 
used to wonder at the bumpers they were drink- 
ing, confined as I was to water. Afterwards it 
became necessary to liim ; and tliough never 
more affected by it than others in genei-al, he 
certainly drank freely. 

He was fond of Holwood,^ and showed taste 
in the planting ; ^ but be mismanaged the water 
sadly ; and laughed when I remonstrated against 
his levelling, as he did, part of the fortification 
in the Roman camp there. All the Roman re- 
mains among us, and whatever related to Gothic 
or ancient times, he held in no great respect. 

No man could wish more to preserve peace 
with France. His heart was set upon peace, 
and upon financial improvements. The war was 
forced upon him. 

I once sent a shorthand writer to take notes 
of his speeches ; but the notes were so imperfect 
that the scheme failed. All the reporters were 

1 A physician; the father of Viscount Sidmouth. 

2Holwood, near Bromley, in Kent; Mr. Pitt's residence. 

3 When a boy, he [William Pitt] used to go a birdnesting 
in the woods of Ho] wood, and it was always, he told me, his 
wish to call it his own. — Lord Bathurst to S. B. 



214 LORD GRENVILLE. 

against us ; and their misrepresentations were 
with us a constant source of complaint. 

When Bishop Prettyraan sent me part of his 
Memoirs, containing little more than extracts 
from Woodfall's Parliamentary Register, I told 
him frankly how wrong it was in a confidential 
friend of Mr. Pitt to lend his countenance to 
such misrepresentations. He returned me an 
unsatisfactory answer, and I declined reading 
any more. 

I had no great respect for Pope, but was sor- 
ry for the destruction of his garden.^ There was 
an old summer-house of Burke's at Beaconsfield 
pulled down ; and I have often regretted that I 
did not buy it and set it up somewhere at Drop- 
more. 

What a crime did Lord Verulam commit ! I 
have often looked at him in the House of Lords 
as he sat there in his insignificance, and have 
said to myself, "That is the man who pulled 
down Bacon's house." ^ 

1 At his villa at Twickenham. See an account of the 
altered state of the garden in William Howitt's Haunts and 
Homes of British Poets, vol. i. p. 171, &c. 

2 Gorhambury House, near St. Albans, and within the 



LORD GRENVILLE. 215 

Jan. 21, 1834.1 

To him may be applied what Cicero says of 
Pompey. — " Non possum ejus casum non dolere : 
hominem enim integrum et castura et gravem 
cognovi." Ad. Att. xi. ep. 6. — Lord Holland, 
to S. R. 



NOTE BY SAMUEL ROGERS. 

In a walk round Hyde Park with Mr. Thomas 
Grenville,^ in August, 1841, he said, — 

'' My father lived at Wotton ; ^ and, if I re- 
bounds of Old Verulam. A few ruins of the mansion re- 
mained when Mr. Basil Montagu visited the spot in 1829. 
Lord Bacon had lived there when a child, and there when 
a child Queen Elizabeth first noticed him. It had been the 
residence of his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon. — Montagu's 
Life of Lord Bacon, ccccxlix. 

1 Lord Grenville died 12 Jan. 1834. 

2 Mr. Thomas Grenville was one of the elder brothers of 
Lord Grenville. He was bom in 1755, second son of the 
Right Honorable George Grenville, and younger brother 
of George, afterwards Marquis of Buckingham. Richard, 
Earl Temple, was his iincle. Mr. T. Grenville left his 
valuable library to the British Museum. 

3 At Wotton, Bucks. 



216 LORD GRENVILLE. 

member right, it was in 1767, when I was in 
my twelfth year, and my brother George and 
myself (Eton boys) were at home for the Mid- 
summer holidays, that Lord Chatham ^ and Lord 
Temple ^ came there on a visit. We dined at 
three o'clock, and at half-past four sallied out to 
the Ninepin Alley; where Lord Chatham and 
Lord Temple, two very tall men, the former in 
the 59th, the latter in the 57th, year of his age, 
played for an hour and a half; each taking one 
of us for his partner. The ladies sat by, look- 
ing on, and drinking their coffee ; and in our 
walk home we stopped to regale ourselves with 
a syllabub under the Cow. 

" The ninepins were larger and heavier than 
any I have seen since ; and it was our business 
as youngsters, to set them up at the conclusion of 
every game. 

" My brother William (Lord Grenville) was 
not present, being only eight years old." ^ 

1 William Pitt, created Earl of Chatham 1766, and died 
1778. 

2 Richard, Earl Temple, who died 1779. His sister was 
the wife of William, Earl of Chatham. 

8 Loi'd Grenville was born in 1759. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

SPA.IN. 

^^^3^::j>0 NAP ARTE, in my opinion, com- 
0^'o«5iK!?\ ™itted one of his gi-eatest eiTors 
M ' «^^^1 when he meddled with Spain ; for 
f«.^?r^^\£ ^jjg animosity of the people was un- 
conquerable, and it was almost impossible to get 
us out of that corner. I have often said it would 
be his ruin ; though I might not live to see it. 
A conqueror, like a cannon-ball, must go on. 
If he rebounds, his career is ovei*. 

[Bonaparte was certainly as clever a man as 
ever lived, but he appears to me to have wanted 
sense on many occasions.] 

At one time I expected him there [in Spain] in 
person, and him by himself I should have re- 
garded at least as an accession of 40,000 men. 

Clausel was the best General employed against 
me there. He gave me a great deal of trouble ; 



220 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

for every night he took a good position, and every 
mornino; I had to turn and dislodge him. 

Once I thought I had him ; but it pleased a 
young gentleman of ours to go and dine at a cab- 
aret in the valley a mile or two off. Clausel's 
reconnoitring party fell in with him, and Clausel 
took the alarm and was gone. He was then a 
young man, and is now (1824) in disgrace and 
in America. If there was a war we should hear 
of him again. 

In Spain, and also in France, I used continually 
to go alone and reconnoitre almost up to their 
piquets. Seeing a single horseman in his cloak, 
they disregarded me as some subaltern. No 
French General, said Soult, would have gone 
without a guard of at least a thousand men. * 

Everywhere I received intelligence from the 
peasants and the priests. The French learnt 
nothing. 

At Vittoria they were hourly expecting Clausel 
with reinforcements, and I was taking my meas- 
ures accordingly, when Alava brought me an 
innkeepex', who said, "Make yourself easy, Sir; 
he is now quietly lodged for the night in my 
house six leagues off." So saying, he returned 
to attend upon him, and I lost no time. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 221 

t 

Gordon (afterwards killed at Waterloo) passed 

the night in an osteria with some French officers, 
and no sooner were they asleep than a Spanish 
child in the room made gestures to Gordon, 
drawing the edge of his hand across his throat. 
— " And why . so ? " said Gordon in the morn- 
ing when they were gone. — " Because I knew 
you to be an Englishman by your sword and 
your spurs." 

" Don't drink of that well," said a Spanish 
woman to an English soldier. " Is it poi- 
soned ? " — " Some Frenchmen are there," she 
replied, " and more than you can count." 
Whenever a Frenchman came and looked into 
it, she sent him in, headlong. 

The French were cruel to their guides. One, 
whom we found dead in the road, had conducted 
them within sight of the Castle they were in 
search of; and no sooner had he pointed to it 
on the hill than he received a bullet from a pistol 
at the back of his head. We found him an hour 
afterwards lying on his face where he fell, and 
learnt in a neighboring village that he had been 
hired there. They wished to conceal their move- 
ments from us ; but why not detain him for a 
day or two ? 



222 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

We were blockading Pampeluna when Bo- 
naparte sent Sonlt from Dresden to relieve if. 
" II a la meilleure tete de tons pour la guerre," 
said he ; and Soult came with an immense army, 
having collected all he could. Our blockading 
force was small, but I knew of the intention , 
and, assembling our troops from all quarters as 
fast as possible, I rode on before them to show 
myself to the blockadei's, and also to the en- 
emy. The first received me with three shouts, 
for they knew that I should not come alone ; 
and by the last, even if not so announced, I was 
sure to be discovered, for I was almost within 
gunshot. ^ 

There was a spy in the habit of going from 
camp to camp. We called him Don Uran de la 
Kosa ; and he dined with us and the French 
alternately. " Who is he and what is he ? " 
said Alava when he saw him at table. " A 



1 This is mentioned by Napier, as on 27 July, 1813, 
the day befoi-e the first battle of Saurorcn, in the Pyre- 
nees. The shout was first raised by one of the Portuguese 
battalions under General Campbell, and, being caught up 
by the next regiments, swelled as it ran along the line. 

Napier's Peninsular War, vi. 130. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 223 

Spaniard, an Andalusian," they replied. — " No 
Spaniard," said Alava ; " he may be Cagliostro, 
or anybody else, but no Spaniard." 

He was forever talking as Frenchmen are, 
and always at my elbow. He had just left the 
French, and he said to me when I was recon- 
noitring, " Do you wish to see Marshal Soult ? " 
" Certainly." " There he is, then ! " I looked 
through my glass, and saw him distinctly ^ — so 
distinctly as to know him instantly when I met 
him afterwards in Paris ; as I did several times, 
though never to exchange ten words with him. ^ 
He was sitting on his horse, and writing a de- 
spatch on his hat ; while an aide-de-camp waited 
by him ; to Avhom, when he had done, he deliv- 
ered it, pointing with much earnestness in one 
direction again and again. " I see enough," I 
replied, and gave the glass to another, saying to 
him, " Observe which way that gentleman goes." 
He galloped off as directed ; and I knew at once, 
as I thought, where the attack was to be made. 



1 Napier mentions this circumstance. — Pen. War vi. 130. 

^ I met them afterwards together at a small tea-party in 
London, and the respect of Soult for the Duke was very- 
remarkable. S. R. 



224 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

"That is my weakest point," said I to myself; 
and I prepared accordingly ; of such use, as I 
had always maintained, are glasses. 

He [Soult] looked much lustier than now, and 
just as his son now does. I beat him thoroughly 
the next day ^ or the day after, and drove him 
back into France. I should have done still 
more but for an accident. A trooper or two of 
his fell in with some stragglers of ours, and, 
snatching them up behind them, galloped oif to 
the camp, that Soult might gather from them 
what he could.^ 

The name of this fellow [the spy] was Ozille. 
Latterly I would not let him come near me, 
and had him always observed. So he could not 
shift his quarters. [When I was Ambassador at 
Paris, he came and begged me to make interest 
with Soult for the settlement of his accounts- 
" How can I ? " I said, laughing, " when we 

1 The 1st battle of Sauroren, or of the Pyrenees, on 28 
July, 1813, and subsequent battles on the 30 July and fol- 
lowing days. — Napier^ s Peninsular War, vi. 136, et seq. 

2 This happened on 31 July, 1813, while Wellington was 
waiting near Elizondo to surprise Soult, who was at San 
Estevan in his retreat from Pampeluna into France. — Ibid. 
VI. 156. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 225 

made such use of you as we did ? " They were 
settled, however, if we could believe him.] 

After the battle of Toulouse ^ I went to Paris, 
and was on my return to the array when Soult 
and I met half way. Each of us had six horses 
to his carriage, and the postilions, as usual, 
stopped on the road to change. I was fast 
asleep, and knew nothing of the matter ; but 
Soult, learning from my courier who I was, 
came to the front of my carriage, as I was 
afterwards told, and during the operation ob- 
served me through his glass as I lay there. At 
Paris I knew him immediately, though I had 
only seen him through mine.^ IMassena, I re- 
member, was at the same dinner, and said to me, 
" Vous m'avez rendu les cheveux gi'is." 

When Massena was opposed to me, and in the 
field, I never slept comfortably. 

Soult was much affected by appearances. 
Once, before the battle of the Pyrenees, when 
I was preparing for action, our men happened to 

1 Which took place on 10 April, 1814, between Welling- 
ton and Soult, and was followed by an armistice and 
peace. 

2 Before the battle of Sauroren in the Pyrenees. — Vide 
supra, p. 222. 

15 



226 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

shout, and I said, " Soult will not come out to- 
day." Nor did he ; for he thought we had re- 
ceived some great reinforcement.^ 

Whether Soult, at his age, [March, 1831] 
would now serve in case of a war I cannot say. 
He is a great man in the Administration of War ; 
but less in battle, less in what are called " Les 
Stratagemes de la Guerre." In the battle of the 
Pyrenees he made many desperate attacks ; but 
I was everywhere prepared for him. 

Marmont throws the fault on others, but I 
think he was to blame at Salamanca ; - for he 
spread his army, thinking that we Avished to 
make off; and with my whole force I made a 
sudden attack on his centre, in front and in rear. 
It was said, and said truly, that we defeated forty 
thousand men in forty minutes. He was, how- 
ever, a very excellent officer. 

In Spain I never marched the troops long. 



1 Napier relates this circumstance from hearsay some- 
what differently though to the same effect. — Pen. War, vi. 
130. 

2 Fought 22 July, 1812. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 227 

Twenty-five miles were the utmost. They set 
off, usually, at five or six in the morning, and 
took their ground by one. In India they could 
go farther. Once in one day I marched them 
seventy-two miles. Starting at three in the 
morning, they went twenty-five miles, and halt- 
ed at noon. Then I made them lie down to 
sleep, setting sentinels over them ; and at eight 
they started again, marching till one at noon the 
next day ; when we were in the enemy's camp. 
In Europe we cannot do so much. For in Eng- 
land we send them by a canal into the interior, 
and along the coast by a smack. In India they 
must walk. 

I look upon it that all men require two pounds 
weight of food a day ; the English not more 
than the French. Vegetable food is less con- 
venient than animal food, the last walking with 
you. 

The elastic woven corselet would answer well 
over the cuirass. It saved me, I think, at Or- 
thez ; ^ where I was hit on the hip. I was never 
struck but on that occasion, and there I was not 

1 In Spain. 



228 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

wounded. I was on horseback again the same 
day.i 

In Spain I shaved myself overnight, and 
usually slept five or six hours ; sometimes, in- 
deed, only three or four, and sometimes only 
two. In India I never undressed ; it is not the 
custom there ; and for many years in the Pen- 
insula I undressed very seldom ; never for the 
first four years. 

Enghsh horses are the best of all for military 
service ; and mares are better than geldings. 
They endure more fatigue, and recover from 
it sooner. 

War in Spain is much less of an evil than in 
other countries. There is no property to destroy. 
Enter a house, the walls are bare ; there is no 
furniture. 

, when at our head-quarters in Spain, 



wished to see an army, and I gave directions 
that he should be conducted through ours. 
When he returned, he said, " I have seen 

1 Sir Wm. Napier, in a letter to Lord John Russell, says 
that the Duke was twice hit; once at Salamanca, and a 
second time at Orthez. — Memoirs of Moore, viii. at end, as 
a note to Vol. v. 57. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 229 

nothing — Nothing but here and there httle clus- 
ters of men in confusion ; some cooking, some 
washing, and some sleeping." " Then you have 
seen an army," I said. 

I should like much to tell the truth ; but if 1 
did, I should be torn to pieces, here or abroad. 
I have indeed no time to write, much as I might 
wish to do so ; and I am still [December, 1827] 
too much in the world to do it. There is a his- 
tory of the Campaign in Spain of 1808 or 9, 
in English with French notes, that is admira- 
ble as to the French movements, and was writ- 
ten most probably by some Irisliman, then with 
Soult. 

Napier has great materials, and means well ; 
but he is too much influenced by anything that 
makes for him, even by an assertion in a news- 
paper. 

I do not think much of Southey. 

The Subaltern ^ is excellent, particularly in the 
American Expedition to New Orleans. He de- 
scribes all he sees. 



1 By G. E. Gleig: first published anonymously in Black- 
wood's Magazine, 1825, 1827. 



230 DURE OF WELLINGTON. 

After the battle of Vittoi-ia the Spaniards said, 
" You came over the Enghsh Menden," — a 
basque Avord for a chain of hills — " Your 
Black Prince came over them, and there he 
fought for Don Pedro the Cruel. At that old 
Castle he had his head-quarters." It agrees 
with the account in Froissardt.^ 



He [the Duke] would often come into my 
room M'hen he rose, and converse for a few 
minutes. But once (it was during the Siege of 
Burgos) he came and walked about and said 

1 The battle of Navarretta, near Vittoria, in Spain, 
fought on 3 April, 1367, by the Black Prince and Don 
Pedro the Cruel against Henry de Transtaraare, King of 
Castille, and Don Tello, in which the Black Prince was 
victorious. — Frohsardf, i. c. 241. General Napier states 
the name of " Englishman's Hill " to have been given to 
a neighboring liill, not in commemoration of the Black 
Prince's victory, but on account of the gallant defence 
of the spot against the Spanish by some English Knights, 
and two hundred men, (a part of the Black Prince's army,) 
who, after holding it long against superior numbers, were 
there all slain. This agrees with Froissardt's account, who 
describes the defence of the hill as happening a short time 
before the battle of Navarretta. — Froissardt, i. c. 239. Na- 
pier's Pen. War, v. 580. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 231 

nothing. At last he opened the door, and said 
as he went out, " Cocks ^ was killed last night." 
F. Ponsonhy.^ 



WATERLOO. 

When Bonaparte left Elba for France, I was 
at Vienna and received the news ft'om Lord 
Burghersh, our Minister at Florence. The instant 
it came I communicated it to every member of 
the Congress, and all laughed ; the Emperor of 
Russia most of all. " What was in your letter to 
his Majesty this morning," said his physician ; 
" for when he broke the seal, he clapped his hands 
and burst out a laughing ? " Various were the 
conjectures as to whither he was gone ; but none 

1 Somers Cocks, killed at the siege of Burgos on 7 Oct. 
1812. He had distinguished himself in the first assault 
(as Major Cocks) on the 19th Sept. for which he was pro- 
moted to the rank of Colonel; and lost his life while gal- 
lantly repulsing the French from the British trenches, 
within so short a time after his promotion. — Napier'' s Pen. 
War. 

- The Honorable Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, son 
of the Earl of Besborough, Lieut. Colonel in 12th Dra- 
goons.(?) He was afterwards wounded at the battle of 
Waterloo. 



232 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

would heai' of France. All were sure that in 
France he would be massacred by the people, 
when he appeared there. I remember Talley- 
rand's words so well : " Pour la France — Non ! " 

Bonaparte I never saw ; though during the 
battle [Waterloo] we were once, I understood, 
within a quarter of a mile of each other. I regret 
it much ; for he was a most extraordinary man. 
To me he seems to have been at his acme at the 
Peace of Tilsit, and gradually to have declined 
afterwards. 

[He would have done better, I think, to have 
stood on the defensive. Six hundred thousand 
men would have gathered round him, and the 
jostling of so many would have been terrible. If 
he had waited for his moment and attacked when 
and where he pleased from the centre, his success 
in one instance might have been fatal to the rest.] 

At Waterloo he had the finest army he ever 
commanded ; and everything up to the onset, 
must have turned out as he wished. Indeed he 
could not have expected to beat the Prussians, as 
he did at Ligny,^ in four hours. 



1 Fought two days before the battle of Waterloo. See Sir 
Henry Hardinge's Memoranda, p. 237, infra. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 233 

But two such armies as those at Waterloo, have 
seldom met, if I may judge from what they did 
on that day. It was a battle of giants ! a battle 
of giants ! 

Many of my troops were new ; but the new 
fight well, though they manoeuvre ill ; better per- 
haps than many who have fought and bled. 

As to the way in which some of our ensigns 
and lieutenants braved danger — the boys just 
come from school — it exceeds all belief. They 
ran as at cricket. 

Very early in the day the Nassau Brigade were 
shifting their ground from an orchard ; and when 
I remonstrated with them, they said in their ex- 
cuse that the French were in such force near 
them. It was to no purpose that I pointed to 
our Guards on the right. It would not do ; and 
so bewildered were they, that they sent a few 
shots after me as I rode off. " And with these 
men," I said to the Corps Diplomatique who were 
with me, " And with these men I am to win the 
battle." They shrugged their shoulders. 

How did they behave in the action ? Well 
enough ; and it should be remembered that, as 
they had never served with us, we had not ac- 



234 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

quired their confidence. They had come over to 
us at Bayonne,^ having formed the rear-guard of 
the French army in Spain ; and knowing as they 
now did, that Bonaparte was in the field, their 
dread of hiin must have borne some proportion 
to the courage with which he had formerly in- 
spired them. 

I never saw the narrative of Lady de Lancy ; 
[I should like much to see it.^ I never saw her. 
I heard she went through a good deal.] De 
Lancy was with me and speaking to me when he 
was struck. We were on a point of land that 
overlooked the plain, and I had just been warned 
off by some soldiers ; (but as I saw well from 
it, and as two divisions were engaging below, I 
had said " Never mind,") when a ball came leap- 

1 On 10 Dec. 1813, after the battle of Barrouilhet, near 
Bayonne. — Napier's Pen. Wai; vi. 387. 

'^ All interesting account in MS. by Lady de Lancy, of 
her attendance on her dying husband, Sir William de 
Lancy, in a peasant's cottage at Waterloo, for seven or 
eight days after the battle, where he had been severely 
wounded, and had at tirst been reported as killed on the 
spot. Lady de Lancj'' was a sister of Captain Basil Hall. 
Mr. Rogers, in a note, says that the Duke saw her narra- 
tive afterwards. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 235 

ing along en ricochet, as it is called, and striking 
him on the back, sent him many yards over the 
head of his horse. He fell on his face, and 
bounded upward and fell again. 

All the Staff dismounted, and ran to him ; and 
when I came up he said, " Pray tell them to 
leave me, and let me die in peace." 

I had him conveyed into the rear; and two 
days afterwards when, on my return from Brus- 
sels, I saw him in a barn, he spoke with such 
strength that I said, (for I had reported him 
among the killed,) "Why, De Lancy, you will 
have the advantage of Sir Condy in Castle Rack- 
rent ; you will know what your friends said of you 
after you were dead." " I hope I shall," he re- 
plied.^ Poor fellow ! We had known each other 

1 The following remarks are in the original manuscript : 
"He said the cannon-ball was not spent, but came from 
quite close at hand, and could not have touched. It was 
the wind of the shot that wounded him, no skin being 
broken; and mentioned another instance of a man close 
beside him in the trenches at in India killed 

without being touched. A horse will wince when a ball 
makes a noise like this [imitating the sound], but when he 
hears it the danger is past." It does not appear clear 
whether the Duke was here speaking of what he saw, or 
was only reporting what Sir William de Lancy had said 
to him. 



236 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

ever since M'e were boys. But I had no time to 
be sorry ; I went on with the army and never 
saw him again. 

When all was over, Blucher and I met at La 
Maison Rouge. It was midnight when he came ; 
and riding up, he threw his arms round me, and 
kissed me on both cheeks as I sat in the saddle. 
I was then in pursuit ; and, as his troops were 
fresh, I halted mine, and left the business to 
him. 

[In the day I was for some time encumbered 
with the Corps Diplomatique. They would not 
leave me, say what I would.] We supped after- 
wards together between night and morning, in a 
spacious tent erected in the valley for that pur- 
pose. Pozzo di Borgo was there among others ; 
and, at my request, he sent off a messenger with 
the news to Ghent, where Louis XVIII. break- 
fasted every morning in a bow-window to the 
street, and where every morning the citizens 
assembled under it to gaze on him. 

When the messenger, a Russian, entered the 
room with the news, the King embraced him ; 
and all embraced him, and one another, all over 
the house. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 237 

An Emissary of Rothschild was in the street ; 
and no sooner did he see these demonstrations 
than he took wing for London. Not a syllable 
escaped from his lips at Bruges, at O^^tend, or 
at Margate ; nor, till Rothschild had taken his 
measures on the Stock Exchange, was the in- 
telligence communicated to Lord Liverpool. 

On that day I rode Copenhagen from four in 
the morning till twelve at night. [And when I 
dismounted he threw up his heels at me as he 
went off.] If he fed, it was on the standing corn, 
and as I sat in the saddle. He was a chestnut 
horse. [I rode him hundreds of miles in Spain 
and at the battle of Toulouse.] He died, blind 
with age (28 years old), in 1835, at Strathfield 
Saye, where he lies buried within a ring fence. 



\_Sir Henry Hardinge.'] 

Before the battle of Ligny, in which I lost 

my arm about noon, Blucher, thinking that the 

French were gathering more and more against 

him, requested that I would go and solicit the 



238 DUKE OF WELLING T OX. 

Duke for some assistance. I set out ; but I had 
not proceeded far for the purpose, when I saw a 
party of horse coming towards me ; and observ- 
ing that they had short tails, I knew at once 
that they were English, and soon distinguished 
the Duke. He was on his way to the Prussian 
head-quarters, thinking that they might want 
some assistance ; and he instantly gave direc- 
tions for a supply of Cavalry. " How are they 
forming ? " he inquired. " In column, not in 
line," I replied. " The Pi-ussian soldier, says 
Blucher, will not stand in line." " Then the 
Artillery will play upon them and they will be 
beaten damnably." So they were. 

At the last Waterloo dinner, when my health 
was drunk as usual, and as usual I rose to re- 
turn thanks, I stated briefly this occurrence, and 
the Duke when I alluded to it, cried " Hear, 
Hear." — Sir Henry Hardinge, at Gladstone's, 
Saturday, June 24, 1843. 

Two days before the battle of Waterloo the 
Duke came in to Lady Mornington's room at 
Brussels, saying, " Napoleon has invaded Bel- 
gium ; order horses and wait at Antwerp for 
further instructions." 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 239 

When they were there [at Antwerp] Alava 
entered theii' room, waving a bloody handker- 
chief, and informed lier that a Victory was 
gained and that they must return forthwith to 
Brussels. 

She and her daughter had not been there [q. 
Brussels] half an hour when the Duke arrived, 
and walking up and down the apartment in a 
state of the greatest agitation, burst into tears, 
and uttered these memorable words: "The next 
greatest misfortune to losing a battle is to gain 
such a Victory as this." ^ — Note hy Smmiel 
Rogers. 

1 Mr. Rogers has preserved in his Commonplnce Book 
a similar remark made by the Duke at another time. 
"What a glorious thing must be a victory, Sir!" said 
* * * to the Duke. " The greatest tragedy in the world, 
Madam; except a defeat." 



240 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS AND ANECDOTES 
BY THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON. 

The French King, when he goes from Chapel, 
speaks to everybody, and different rooms have 
different ranks. 

I have often dmed with the King of the 
Netherlands. The Northern Kings admit sub- 
jects and strangers to dine with them. The 
Bourbons never did, I believe, at Paris, except 
in my instance. At Ghent, perhaps, the eti- 
quette was departed from ; but I believe I am the 
only person who has dined with Louis XVIII. 
at Paris. I have dined often with him. He sat 
at six ; and when dinner was announced, was 
wheeled in from the room in which he had re- 
ceived me. The table was large, and he sat 
between the two ladies, the Duchesses of Berri 
and of Angouleme. I sat between Monsieur 
and the Duke d' Angouleme. They were waited 
upon by Gentlemen — I by a servant ; and, of 
course, best served. The dinner was exquisite. 
We sat down at six, and rose at seven ; and 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 241 

then all sat and talked with the King till eight, 
avoiding all political subjects. The King eat 
freely, but mixed water with his wine, which was 
champagne. The King will not now go out 
in the carriage but on great occasions. They 
have contrived a machine to lift him into it by; 
but his indolence, or his fear of the caricaturists, 
or both, keep him at home. He is fond of 
mots, and full of esprit rather than sensible ; 
and did not at first consent to read the speeches 
prepared for him by his ministers, preferring to 
speak d'ahondance. — At Wohurn Abbey and Aps- 
ley House, April and June, 1821. 

[ The Duke of Wellington has, naturally, a 
great gayety of mind ; he laughs at alrtiost 
everything, as if it served only to divert hira. 
Not less remarkable is the simplicity of his 
manner. It is, perhaps, rather the absence of 
everything like affectation. In his account of 
himself he discovers, in no instance, the least 
vanity or conceit, and he listens always readily 
to others. His laugh is easily excited, and it is 
very loud and long, like the whoop of the whoop- 
ing-cough often repeated. S. R.] 
16 



242 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

Moscow, I am very sure, was burnt down by 
the irregulai'ity of his [Bonaparte's] own sol- 
diers. That pamphlet, published by the Gover- 
nor of Moscow, states what, I am persuaded, 
was the truth. 

If he had stopt, and had contented himself 
with organizing Poland, and established Ponia- 
towski there, it had been well for him. After 
his Austrian marriage, Metternich was sent to 
Paris to see him, and to report upon his char- 
acter, and to discover whether he meant to be 
quiet. His answer, as he told me, was in three 
words : " He is unaltered." He had then re- 
solved to invade Russia. — At Lady Shelley's, 
Berkeley Square, 8 3Iay, 1823. 

■ I hear nothing by my left ear. The drum is 
broken, and might have been broken twenty 
years ago, for aught I know to the contrary. 
A gun discharged near me might have done it. 
Strange impressions come now and then after 
a battle ; and such came to me after the battle 
of Assaye in India.^ I slept in a farm-yard ; and 

1 Fought September, 1803. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 243 

whenever I awaked, it struck me that I had lost 
all my friends, so many had I lost in that battle. 
Again and again, as often as I awaked, did it 
disturb me. In the morning I inquired anxiously 
after one and another ; nor was I convinced that 
they were living till I saw them. 

I speared seven or eight wild boars in a forest 
in Picardy — an Eastern practice. The largest 
struck the sole of my foot with his tusk, when I 
thrust my lance into his spine, and was turning 
my horse off at the instant, as I always did. 
The rest of the party set np a shout, and I be- 
lieve it gave me more pleasure, this achievement, 
than anything I ever did in my life. Lord Hill 
killed one on foot, but the difficult thing was to 
kill one on horseback. Whoever threw the first 
lance into a boar claimed it as his. 

Never saw but one royal tiger wild. Never at 
a tiger hunt. 

Elephants used always in war [in India], for 
conveyance of stores or artillery. I had once oc- 
casion to send my men through a river upon some. 
A drunken soldier fell off, and was carried down 
by the torrent till he scrambled up a rock in the 
middle of the sti'eam. I sent the elephant after 



244 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

him, and with large strides he obeyed his driver. 
When arrived, he could not get near the rock, 
and he stiffened his tail to serve as a plank. 
The man was too drunk to avail himself of it, 
and the elephant seized him with his trunk, and, 
notwithstanding the resistance he made, and the 
many cuffs he gave that sensitive part, placed 
him on his back. — Cassiohury, 2 and 3 Oct. 
1824 

They want me to place myself at the head of a 
faction, but I say to them, I have now served my 
country for forty years — for twenty I have com- 
manded her armies, and for ten I have sat in the 
Cabinet — and I will not now place myself at the 
head of a faction. 

When I lay down my office to-morrow, I will 
go down into my county, and do what I can to 
restore order and peace. And in my place in 
Parliament, when I can, I Avill approve ; when I 
cannot, I will dissent, but I will never agree to be 
the leader of a faction. — At Arhuthnofs, over the 
Jire. Sunday evening, 21 Nov. 1830.-^ 

[Having met Lord Grey again and again at 

1 This was at the moment of Earl Grey's accession to 
office, on the resignation of the Dulse of Wellington. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 245 

my table, and knowing our intimacy, he meant 
that these words should be repeated to him ; 
and so they were, word for word, on that very 
night. S. R.] 

Scott's Life of Napoleon is of no value. The 
tolerable part of it is what relates to his retreat 
from Moscow. I have thought much on that 
subject, and have made many inquiries concern- 
ing it. I gave him my papers. He has used 
some, not all.^ 

"Wolf Tone was a most extraordinary man, 
and his history is the most cui'ious history of 
those times.^ With a hundred guineas in his 
pocket, unknown and unrecommended, he went 
to Paris in order to overturn the British Govern- 
ment in Ireland. He asked for a large force ; 

1 The following note, by Sir Walter Scott, appears in 
Lockliart's Life of Scott, vi. 387. "16 Nov. 1826. At 
eleven, to the Duke of Wellington, who gave me a bundle 
of remarks on Bonaparte's Russian Campaign, written in 
his carriage, during his late mission to St. Petersburg. It 
is furiously scrawled, and the Russian names hard to dis- 
tinguish; but it shall do me Yeoman's service." 

2 Theobald Wolf Tone, a leading man in the Irish Re- 
bellion in 1798. 



246 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

Lord Edward Fitzgerald for a small one. Lord 
Edward was for assistance only, and was afraid 
of their control. They listened to Tone, but 
when their fleet arrived in Bantry Bay, the 
Irish would not rise to join them.. Then it was, 
I believe, and for that purpose, that their relig- 
ious feelings were worked upon ; and from that 
time the dissension was religious. Before, it 
was political. — At Talleyrand's, 13 March, 
183L 

In Poland an army can keep the field from 
June till February. In February the thaw be- 
gins, and the rivers become impassable ; nor are 
they navigable till June. In that interval, too, the 
roads are axle-deep. Diebitsch^ began in Feb- 
ruary [1831], urged on, probably, by the Emper- 
or ; and, failing in his first attempt, was obliged 
to throw his troops into cantonments. These 
the Poles attacked, with a terrible slaughter. 
Diebitsch must have lost there above 30,000 
men. The Russians will now, ^ I think, settle 

1 Field Marshal Diebitsch, the commander of the Russian 
forces against the Poles in 1831. 

2 July 1831. The Polish Revohition was finally put down 
by the Russians in September 1831. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 247 

the matter ; and yet a revolutionary war is the 
most difRcult to manage of any. Military tactics 
are there of httle service. 

The Poles, I think, have no chance if the 
Russian army is true ; and it is only when in 
their quarters that troops grow mutinous and 
desert ; not in the field. 

Bonaparte began his campaign there [in Po- 
land] in June, when he fought the battle that 
ended in the peace of Tilsit.^ He was slow in 
Paris, but swift enough when he took the field. 
— July 5, 1831. 

A tax on the transfer of stock was three times 
proposed to me from Cambridge by a Professor. 
I sent them the clause in the Act of Parliament 
against it, and heard no more of it. — Apsley 
House. March 1, 1832. 

On the 18th June, 1832 — Monday — I rode 
to Pistrucci, in the Mint. He had made a bust 
of me, but wished for another sitting. So I 
went without giving him notice, on tliat day at 

1 The Treaty of Tilsit was concluded 1 July, 1807. 



248 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

9 o'clock, and mounted my horse at half-past 10 
to leave him ; when I found a crowd at the 
gate, and several groaned and hooted. Some 
cried, " Bonaparte forever ! " I rode on at 
a gentle pace, but they followed me. Soon a 
magistrate (Ballantine) came and offered his 
services. I thanked him, but said I thought I 
should get on very well. The noise increased, 
and two old soldiers, Chelsea Pensioners, came up 
to me. One of them said he had served under 
me for many a day, and I said to him, " Then 
keep close to me now ; " and I told them to 
walk on each side ; and whenever we stopt, to 
place themselves, each with his back against the 
flank of my horse. Not long afterwards I saw 
a policeman making off, and I knew it must be 
to the next station for assistance. I sent one of 
my pensioners after him ; and presently we got 
another policeman. We then did pretty well, 
till I reached Lincoln's Inn, where I had to call 
at an Attorney's Chambers [Maule'sJ. Sugden 
and many others came out of the Chancery 
Court to accompany me, and a large reinforce- 
ment of police came from Bow Street.^ The 

1 This adventure is told in the Annual Register, and in 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 249 

conduct of the citizens affected me not a little. 
Many came out of the shops to ask me in. Many- 
ladies in their carnages were in tears, and many 
waved their handkerchiefs from the windows, 
and pointed downwards to a^k me in. 

I came up Holborn by the advice of a man 
with a red cape. At first I thought it might be 
a snare, but found him to be a City Marshal. 
I was foi'ty minutes in coming from the Mint to 
Lincoln's Inn. A young man in a buggy did 
me great service, flanking me for some time, and 
never looking towards me for any notice. — At 
my house, Friday, June 22, [q. 1832.] 

The French in Algeria should have done as 
we have done in India. They should have re- 
spected everywhere private property, and the cus- 
toms and habits of the people. They have intro- 

the newspapers of the day, with the omission of several of 
the details. The Annual Register states that the Duke 
took shelter in the chambers of Sir Charles Wetherell, in 
Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, until a body of police ar- 
rived. Wetherell had been Attorney-General under the 
Duke's Government in 1828, and perhaps it is to him the 
Duke referred, as "an Attorney;" or he may have had 
to call on Mr. Maule, then Solicitor to the Treasury, whose 
chambers were also in Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn. 



250 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

ducecl a system of spoliation and plunder, that 
sets every man against them ; a system that is 
now too strong to be checked by the Govern- 
ment at home. They parcel out the land, plant- 
ing wheat where there was rice, and changing 
the face of the country. Their soldiers, too, I 
suspect, are not what they were. 

What is that rara avis — Common Sense ? It 
is, I believe, a good understanding, moderated 
and modulated by a good heart. — Ellis's Hotel, 
March 20, 1838. 

[As he said these words his voice dropped, 
and I never knew him speak with more feeling. 
S. R.] 

Clausel made no mistake at Constantinc. The 
failure was occasioned by the badness of his 
army. He could not depend upon his officers ; 
they were so worthless a set. — 21 July, 1838. 

The Chinese show more sense and knowledge 
than I thought they, possessed. They reason 
well, and they fight our ships better than I 
thought they would. But of this I am sure, we 
must make them sensible of our power. They 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 251 

are now constructing vast gongs, and preparing 
to frighten us with terrifymg noises. The Por- 
tuguese ordered their soldiers to attack us with 
ferocious countenances. — At Lord Wilton^s, June 
5, 1840. 

I was on my way to Fontainebleau with 
Charles X., then Monsieur, and the Duke of 
Fitzjames, when passing in the carriage through 
the street in which Henry IV. had been assas- 
sinated ; and Charles pointed out to me the very 
place where, according to tradition, it had hap- 
pened. Charles spoke of him with great admi- 
ration, and dwelt much on his merit in changing 
his religion for the good of his country, con- 
trasting his conduct with that of James II. 
Fitzjames of course, took the part of his ancestor, 
and long was the argument, while I sat still, 
leaving the combatants to themselves. At last 
they came to the same opinion, agreeing that 
Henry was right in becoming a Catholic, and 
James in continuing one. 

Had Caesar's Commentaries with me in India, 
and learnt much from them, fortifying my camp 
every night as he did. I passed over the rivers 



252 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

as he dill, by means of baskets and boats of bas- 
ket-work ; only I think I improved upon him, 
constructing them into bridges, and always for- 
tifying them, and leaving them guarded, to return 
by them if necessary. — 24 Nov. 1840. 



He [the Duke] had a high idea of Moore's ^ 
talents, and always said that all he wanted was 
practice in the command of a large body of troops. 
At the treaty of Cintra ^ he said to Moore, " You 
and I, Moore, are now the only men ; and if you 
are to command, I am ready to serve under you." 
Told me hy Arhuthnot, at Beckcfs, Downing 
Street, Nov. 14, 1826. S. R. 

Walking some years ago [about 1838 or 1839] 
through the Park with the Duke of Wellington, I 
[S. R.] said to him among other things, " What 
an array there is in the House of Commons against 
Lord John Russell ; — Peel, Stanley, Graham, 
&c. ! " " Lord John is a Host in Himself." 



1 Sir John Moore. He fell gloriously under the walis 
of Corunna on 16 January, 1809. 

2 The convention of Cintra was concluded on 22 August, 
1808. 



DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 253 

It was in vain that the Duke of "Wellington 
said, " You must not cross the Indus I For, 
sure as you are to conquer, you can nowhere 
establish yourselves." We crossed it, and go 
where we would, disaster followed us wherever 
we went. Yet never to the last has he suffered 
the least allusion to it in Parliament. " Were 
the subject to be revived it would lessen us," he 
says, '• in the eyes of all Europe." And when 
Sir James Graham gave notice of a motion con- 
cerning it, he sent his friend Arbuthnot to say 
to him, " You must not make it." 



THE END. 




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